2025

2025 arrived faster than a street taco served out of a food truck!

Call me crazy, but it feels like 2024 flew by as if some great overseeing power snatched the calendar off the side of the refrigerator and flipped through the months like a Las Vegas black jack dealer shuffling a deck. And while we can’t time travel (or so they say) or watch a personal documentary of A Day and a Life of Me from this past year, we can reflect on ourselves, our past actions and reactions, and the attitude we portrayed in both difficult and simple situations.

Reflection is difficult. It means tapping on the rigid shell we encapsulate ourselves in. We carry an exterior to keep our sensitive feelings close and protected; except, there’s a lot of gooey goodness under that tough exterior. Too many of us are afraid, for personal reasons, to show the world our softer side, or vulnerable side, because somewhere in our ancestry we were forced to stay strong because life was lived in survival mode.   

Except we don’t have to live in survival mode anymore. We don’t churn our own butter or rely on hunting for both meat and coats. We don’t have to stoke a fire year-round so to keep our kettle water boiling in order to kill bacteria. We can use two-ply instead of poison oak leaves to wipe; and nowadays, we can take an aspirin for a headache instead of attaching twelve leeches to our brow for relief.

Life is amazing!

It’s time to start over and focus on ourselves, both mentally and physically, and awaken our sense of self-actualization. Trust me on this one. I read a book.

We’ve spent far too long focusing on everyone else’s wishes, that our own basic needs and desires have been pushed to the back of the refrigerator to mold and decompose, only to get tossed in the garbage when the smell gets too bad. That’s why we slowly lost ourselves and every year that passed without knowing our true self, or listening to our true self, we fell deeper and deeper into an unescapable continuum.

When we lose sight of our own basic mental necessities, the Universe has a tendency to speak up—loud and clear—by forcing a break in the action in the form of disease, or ailments, or a broken foot that says, Slow down already! As a result of my quiet reflection, instead of creating a New Year’s resolution that fails within two weeks, I’m creating a timeline of short-term goals that are attainable. From home to work to meeting new and weird people, I choose to seek personal happiness. And honestly, when we find that spark within ourselves, it shines. People like shiny things. Happiness and smiles are contagious; so, infect the world. And, if all else fails, there’s always tacos.