Franklin Matters: Franklin TV: So

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Franklin TV: So – How’s It Going?

And, I Bet I Already Know the Answer

by Pete Fasciano, Executive Director 01/07/2024

Procrastination. It’s why the Christmas lights still hang from the eaves in March. If our New Year’s calendar is already littered with failed resolutions – it’s okay.

Redemption. It’s why we strive. Striving does not come with a guarantee or even a vague promise. However, consistent striving offers progress. Sold. I’ll take it.

There isn’t a New Year’s resolution that can’t be rebooted, rekindled, rededicated. Given that the perfect is the enemy of the good, then strive, but not for perfection. Strive for the moment – for the day. Tomorrow you can opt to strive for that day. Then perhaps the next day, you might go for more of the same optimistic striving. How much striving? Just enough to sense some progress. Along the way, take pleasure in small gains - small momentary celebrations; all part of your long game. (Yes, you have one. Don’t forget that.)

As for striving today; don’t sweat tomorrow or the next day or the next. Just be in today’s moment today. Striving is always a very ‘present tense’ state of being. The striver’s mindset is a subtle, sua sponte act of will.

If starting is the hard part, then that striver’s mindset is the thing within each of us that can make those hard starts – and restarts – possible. Always possible. If you accept that ‘possible’ is a constant, then you have the stuff of hope, and of striving.

For ‘always possible’ can become ‘eventual’, and eventual can become – actual.

There’s nothing sacrosanct – or magic – about the New Year – or it’s first day. The pragmatic reality – the practical magic (pragmagic?) is within us all to wake up on any morning of our choosing and quietly say to ourselves, “Today is my day.”

Although the glitter of The Season is done, the glow of hope and striving remains, resides, and abides – in the possibilities of every new day. Happy New Day!

May 2024 smile warmly, kindly upon us all. Now get back out there and make it happen.