FCPNY

FCPNY
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Thursday, January 2, 2014

New beginnings

Happy New Year! I attended a worship service on New Year's Day and the presider gave a wonderful homily about being granted opportunities to start over. He opened with a cute story about a man who started each day with a review of the local obituaries. Finding his name among the obits one morning, the man called the newspaper editor to complain. After taking an earful of grief from the caller, the editor promised to make it up to him by including his name the next day among the listing of new births. "We'll give you a whole new beginning," he told the man.

Hopefully neither you nor I want to go back that far, but it is nice to get a chance to make a fresh start in any aspect of life. Taking advice from the same preacher, we should do the following before making resolutions:

1. Examine the past -- where are you coming from? You can do it anytime but the New Year is a nice time to restate your personal credo. What do you stand for? What few words describe your ethics, your beliefs and your values? What experiences -- both in the past year and in life generally -- need to be processed and evaluated as you move forward?

2. Identify the present -- where do you stand today? This is the transition moment. You've looked back and now you're turning your head to the future. Don't try moving forward while still looking back; you'll surely bump into something or trip and fall if you do, maybe even hurt yourself. Look ahead and identify where you want to go. The homily included another story. The great Mickey Mantle was walking one afternoon in New York City to Yogi Berra's apartment. Getting lost on the way, he stopped at a payphone and called Yogi. "Where are you now?" Yogi asked. "On the corner of 5th and Main," replied Mantle. In keeping with his well-known style Berra then said, "Great, just keep coming this way!" and then hung up. Moving without a destination in mind leads to wandering and squandering of time, talent and treasure. Know your destination before moving forward.

3. Chart the course and evaluate frequently -- once you start moving toward an objective you need to regularly measure where you are. Is the course you charted getting you to the destination you want? If not, re-chart and move in the new direction. Don't abandon the goal, even if you have moved farther away than you were when you started. You can still get there and, with the right outlook, might even enjoy the longer than expected ride.

Best wishes for a happy, healthy and fruitful year and beyond. Drop us a note at tcuskey@fcpny.com or call 877-275-2726 if we can be of help to you.

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