End or the Beginning

The advent of a new year brings in its wave an opportunity to reboot our lives by purging the toxic and imbibing the benign. But it also moots the question whether we really need an end for a beginning.

This brings to attention the importance of closure in situations that demand thus. How many times we observe great ideas generated but dying a death in infancy due to the absence of a sense to take them to closure via practical execution. Or closer home, how many times do we actually exhibit the strength and character to take our personal issues to closure. Overcoming the temptation to hide behind the comfort of denial and facing the indelectable head-on is a feat of great courage. In spite of their negative connotations confrontation of tacit problems, face to face break-up in relationships, assertion of unpopular ideas and aggression in attitude are examples of fearlessness of the end. The beginning requires an apt end, with its associated period of grief and letting go so that it does not hold us back from embarking on a new journey.

The end also brings with it the fear of the unknown – the essential evil called ‘change’. Without realizing most of us do become comfortable in the present to the extent that even a slight jolt that shakes us into the awareness of the need to restart is deemed unpleasant. I often give myself this little check where I count the times I experience discomfort in a particular day. Sometimes it’s almost a week before I can count one. My fitness instructor used to tell me that if I am not experiencing pain and discomfort in my muscles I am not doing things right – so every time the body gets used to the current level of intensity you need to increase the heat. The lack of a deliberate attempt to come out of our comfort zones is an indication of fatal stagnation. The beginning requires overcoming the intimidation of unventured territories and embracing the challenge of breaking out of the routine.

But is the end really the end or is it just the beginning seen upside down. I would like to believe that the end and the beginning are like the yin and the yang in Taoism – one metamorphoses into another in a beautiful and continual cycle of start and finish, so that we are able to remove the sadness from end and fear from the beginning. Richard Bach in his book illusions put it most aptly, “…what the caterpillar calls the end of the world the Master calls the butterfly”.