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By Kim Hyun-mi
Cultural or generational, I'm slightly annoyed when I have to repeat the New Year's greeting in less than a month as I'm more used to the New Year starting on Jan. 1, as per the solar calendar, and get myself in the mood to start fresh, reload my motivation and recharge my optimism. Around this time, I become familiar with the new number when I write the date, pick up my act to initiate at least what I have been putting off the last year for this year; I even have prayer requests.
But the Lunar New Year of 2023, the year of the Black Rabbit, feels like it's given me more time to really ground my perspective, another chance to remind myself of what's important.
Entering my 50s, I ache unannounced, even as an avid gym goer, working out 3 times a week, alternating with swimming, hiking, golfing and even occasional yoga and bowling. I consistently eat three meals a day, cooking most of what I eat. Avocado arugula shrimp toast served with a mug of hand-drip coffee is my favorite breakfast.
Needless to say, I have a relatively healthy routine but once in a while I still wake up surprised at how my body or parts of my body feel and how easily I injure myself. Thus it's time to revisit one of my favorite quotes from WB Yeats: "Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young we loved each other and were ignorant." As an English Lit. major, I had always been fascinated at how "aging" has been described by many sage scholars and believe it or not, looked forward to living that "wisdom" which supposedly should replace our physicality.
Yes, I'm finally at an age where wisdom should be more tangible and productivity has to be more meaningful. I once heard that should we align our lifespan to a 24-hour schedule chart, we should be able to get an idea of where we are. So if I were to live an average female lifespan of 84 years, I'm far more than halfway. So my life would roughly correspond to a regular afternoon around 3 p.m. on a 24-hour chart. So how's my day around 3 p.m.? Being an early bird, I'm usually very tired but trying to push through the day so I can get my reward at the end of the day with a good night's rest. But sometimes, my battery is too low and I must rearrange my schedule to fit in a short power nap to really enjoy my evening hours. So what do I expect this year?
This year's wisdom is not to achieve something new but to be able to discern what is important. And I decided to focus on having a balance as I go along with our orderly positive human course of life. Yes, I will be sick, I will not always be peppy but I will know that it's ok to let go, when to take a step back and how to accept others for their being themselves and remember my routine praise to be able to relish more of what we are offered every day.
"Therefore we do not lose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." (2 Corinthians 4:16)
Kim Hyun-mi is a part-time English teacher based in Seoul.
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