Stories from a Country Girl: Year-End Thoughts

My nephew is blowing on his horn in the next room, getting ready to welcome the New Year at midnight. The entire neighborhood is full of the sounds of horns, mostly used by children who are excited to celebrate tonight. I heard there are no fireworks allowed in the next town and that – quite possibly – it is the same thing in ours as well. I do not mind at all. As pretty as some of them can be, I have never been a fan of the smog resulting from it. The noise I can probably stand for a few hours today (and tonight). It is not that bad.
I am happy to leave 2014 behind and welcome 2015. So many things that were on the negative side happened this year and I am more than happy to leave them all behind. I am not saying that there were no good points to 2014 (more on those in a future post), but the stressful moments were more than I had expected. In spite of that, I am still grateful because from the bad experiences came some good life lessons that I will take with me to the new year. I learned that doing the right thing will not always be rewarded. Why? Because sometimes doing the right thing results in change and for some, that is a bad thing. They resist it. They attack the person instigating change because the change itself feels like an attack on them. To me change is a good thing, it is a challenge you can either shrink from or rise above of. Other people obviously do not look at it that way. Will I turn away from doing the right thing? Maybe not. But I probably won’t bend over backwards for it either.This year I learned more about the people in my life. I have always known that there are people who are, as they say, “user-friendly:” people who are only your friend as long as there is something you can do for them. I did not think that I actually had people like that in my life but apparently I did. Once the favors ended, once things said and done were not in their favor, the claws came out. It was a tough lesson learned and I am now more discerning about who I allow in my inner circle.Another thing I learned is that words are just that — words. You cannot hold people to their word anymore. People give their word so easily, without thought if they can follow through or not. Call me naive, but I hate it when people do not fulfill their promises (or do not apologize when that happens). If you cannot do it, do not promise it. Do not say anything if you do not mean it. Unfortunately, I realized that not everyone thinks that way. From now on, I take everything with a grain of salt. Lesson learned.My positive life lesson came from all the negative lessons learned: everything I have experienced helped me to recognize who my real friends are. It helped to reinforce my belief that when I need it most, my family (by blood and through friendship) will be the people who will stand by me no matter what. Ergo, my time and my efforts will be better spent on them than anyone else. So much of what caused stress for me this year has been from work. As much as I am aware that this is where I earn my living, I learned that I should really draw a line between my work life and my personal life. I should give as much priority to the latter as the former, if not more. I hope that 2015 will be all about that.What life lessons did you learn this year?

Photo Source: True Shayari