Youth, New Year, and Schopenhauer. As a New Year approaches I consider resolutions to be made or do I want to change an undesired trait or behavior. For me last year was a time of physical pain, small victories, reflection, and many other experiences. What will the upcoming year be like? I think of each year as an opportunity that will require my utmost efforts, but hopefully be filled with new wonders. If January is a new birth and a vehicle to a new start I offer two quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer:

“In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theater before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means.”

“In youth it is the outward aspect of things that most engages us; while in age, thought or reflection is the predominating quality of the mind. Hence, youth is the time for poetry, and age is more inclined to philosophy. In practical affairs it is the same: a man shapes his resolutions in youth more by the impression that the outward world makes upon him; whereas, when he is old, it is thought that determines his actions.”

So where do those quotes leave me? As I often say “life isn’t always easy, but the alternative is unappealing.” I will try to embrace life and all the challenges next year. I will strive to maintain time for poetry like a youth and philosophy as the old. Can I combine these? I will try with that for a New Year’s resolution. Peace.