Mantra for 2021: Accept (yourself), forgive (yourself) and move on (better, stronger, smarter)

My people, we have entered the new year. Congratulations and if you are reading this I can only tell you that I am proud of you.

I hope you had a good rest, ate, drank, whatever, for these holidays. We welcomed the new one and that’s it, we are returning to reality.

Will 2021 be better? Or will it be a sequel to 2020? I do not know. I’m not smart. In 2020, we really learned that there are things we can’t possibly predict or influence. So it would be foolish to plan and make New Year’s resolutions.

But… I think 2020 was a good opportunity for one big reset, a return to factory settings. I think we got a really good opportunity to start over and turn the page. The world has stopped and will move again sooner or later, and when that happens… We have the opportunity to decide for ourselves which direction to take.

And while we wait for that moment, we can prepare new foundations, write a new script, choose a new mantra.

We can decide to accept more. Both others and ourselves. Especially ourselves.

We can decide that we will try harder to understand the other side, that we will not make sudden conclusions, that we will not judge and that we will not be jerks towards those who are different from ourselves, different thinking and different principles. Because this year we were definitely jerks. Even more than in previous years.

We can try to be kinder to ourselves. The end of the world is not all that makes it so. We are not guilty if we do not suit someone, if they cannot understand our thoughts and principles. It doesn’t make our thinking guilty or bad. What is wrong and what is right? The line is thin and blurred.

We are no less valuable if we make a mistake, if we do not know, or if sometimes something is simply not given to us. We are no less valuable if we are sometimes hard to bear, with flaws and insecurities that we did not choose for ourselves.

We must know how to forgive those flaws and insecurities, mistakes and failures. We must learn that all this is there to strengthen and enlighten us, teach us love and bring us closer to ourselves.

They say the longest path is the one that leads from the brain to the heart. Or vice versa. Many times the heart knows exactly what we need, but its brain does not trust it. Likewise, the heart is many times stupid and irrational, but it is difficult for the brain to convince it otherwise. It is mistakes and experience that help us reconcile the two, or at least learn which one to listen to at what point.

That’s why we need to know how to forgive ourselves. Because if we knew better, we would have done better. At one point we didn’t know, but now we know, or we will know. That’s OK.

We must learn to forgive others as well. And they would have done better if they had known better. Maybe not, but anger is the biggest burden we can carry with us. Anger is the biggest killer of our inner peace, and our peace is priceless.

So forgive them. You don’t have to hang out or keep in touch with people who have hurt you, but forgive them. Be a better human and move on with an easier step.

Keep going – better, stronger and smarter.

I will never forget one bigger winter party. I was in the organization and I had enough of everything, both obligations and people, so I went to hide in the dressing room. Another woman came to hide. We met that same day, but we still decided to spill each other problems about everything. I haven’t seen her since, but I still remember her telling me – “Don’t worry, it can only get better from now on.”

And after that, I really only went for the better.

That’s why I’m telling you now – it can only get better from now on.

You are already smarter today than you were yesterday, let alone a year, two or ten years ago. Just imagine where you will be next year, how much life experience you will have only then. Imagine how much that will change and how much you will achieve.

So don’t give up. Keep going and better times will come, sooner or later. Something will turn out according to plan, something out of plan, but everything will be exactly as it should be… Whether we are aware of it or not.