Reflections on 2014

Steven Spielberg, in one of his more reflective moments opined:  “All of us every single year, we’re a different person.  I don’t think that we’re the same person all our lives.”

What an opportunity that opens up for all of us as we contemplate the past year and look forward to 2015 during this holiday season.

This year each of us was a certain kind of person but, if one agrees with Spielberg, this past year is no predictor of who we will be in the future.  Next year gives each of us an opportunity to be different, to be more creative, more inventive, a better friend, a better significant other, or a new role model for our children and descendants.

We, each of us, have the opportunity to reinvent ourselves and become the person we always wanted to be, if it is different than whom we are now.  Or, of course, if we are satisfied with whom we are, to further improve on the packaging.

In a word, the message of this holiday season is more than just peace on earth, good will toward men (with apologies for the non p.c. sexist reference).  It is more than a Happy New Year.  The message is a challenge, a challenge not to be more of the same, not to simply count off another 365 days, not to be complacent but to be creative.

My father of blessed memory wrote in my elementary school autograph book “be always unsatisfied but never dissatisfied.”  He was a man wiser than his education would have dictated and it is a message that had guided my life.

My hope, at this joyous time of the year, is that in the midst of the celebrations, the dinners, parties and family gatherings, each of us will pause to reflect on the challenge put before us and make the year to come everything that it can be for the betterment of each of us and all of mankind.