Thresholds

 The new year, presided over by the Roman god, Janus, from whom we get the name January, is the perfect time for this kind of reflection. Janus is the god of transitions, of thresholds, and of change. He has two faces and looks both forward and behind, and therefore, as we enter his month, it is appropriate that so should we. 

What are the choices we have made that have led us to this moment in our lives? What are the choices we might make that will lead us to the places we wish to get to in our lives?

But before rushing headlong into the New Year and our resolutions, spurred on by an over-anxious media complex, prodding us from one hyped-up event to the next, it is worth taking a moment to slow down and look back. I believe that the reason that so many resolutions fail is that they are driven by a fantasy of finality, of a finish line that we will one day cross and our self-improvement work will at last be done. But the lesson of Janus is that we are always on the threshold. We are always becoming. We have never become. It is a cliche that life is a journey, not a destination, but it is one that we probably could stand to hear again and again, as it is a lesson that people generally have a hard time learning. Alan Watts’ favorite metaphor was that life was a dance because the point of the dance is not that you arrive at a particular spot on the floor, but that you dance.

Part of the dance of the threshold is to be conscious of what we are leaving behind. There is an old New Year’s Eve custom called First Footing. There are many variations, but in one of them a dark stranger enters one’s house bearing gifts and then, when he leaves, he takes with him ashes as a symbol of the old year passing away. In my consulting office there is a pellet stove, which gives a coziness and comfort to the sessions I hold with my clients. On January 1st, I will make a ritual of cleaning out the stove and carrying out the ashes, reflecting consciously as I do so on all the things that I want to sweep out in my own life.

What are the things you want to remove from your life? As a career counselor I have a few suggestions of things we could all use less of: Fear. Self-doubt. Old limiting beliefs that no longer serve. Of course, the work of removing these things from your life is never complete, but even if you rid yourself of just a little bit of each these, it can make an enormous difference.

The major belief that I would have everyone throw out with the ashes is the one that starts: “It’s too late…” “It’s too late” is spoken by the part of us that is stuck in the past and needs the other side of the threshold as an antidote. Once we have had a moment to look back, it is time to say goodbye to the past and turn and face the future. And it is in this spirit that I offer you this poem. It was written by the Turkish poet, Nazim Hikmet from prison and it is titled 24th September 1945. It is as relevant for each of us today as it was when it was written. I think this is a beautiful poem, reminding us that we are always on the threshold of our own becoming and the best is always yet to come:

Happy New Year!