Well, here we are rapidly approaching the end of another year, and ready to move into 2025, wondering where this year went, and looking back, pondering if we had a productive 2024.

We can’t change what happened before this moment, but as we look back, we self-evaluate, we self-determine what was good in this past year, and what might not have been so good, then move forward and get right back on that stage of life to try and make what lies ahead better for us in the coming new year.

Often times we look at our daily workday (may include some weekend days, if we work weekends) routines, and many days seem to carry this same schedule (some of the activities may be a bit different from person to person, but the gist of the routine is very similar for most of us): wake up, get up, use the bathroom, brush teeth, shower or bathe, have breakfast or coffee/juice, go to work, come home, maybe hit the gym, read the paper, watch some TV, go to bed, repeat, repeat, repeat, etc.

It seems that our yearly routines could be remembered much the same way. Using an already overused adage, “That’s life!”

We can look at the chorus lyrics of Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band’s 1973 released hit song, “Turn the Page,” and maybe tell ourselves in amazement, “Hey, I think he wrote that for me.” The words of the chorus could be the epitome for all of our lives.

“Turn the Page” Chorus Lyrics

Song by Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band

“Here I am

On the road again

There I am

Up on the stage

Here I go

Playin’ star again

There I go

Turn the page”

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Bob Seger

Turn the Page lyrics (c) BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Look at where we are. We seem to be always/often traveling the roads of new days, new weeks, new months, culminating in the approach of a new year, and as we do what we do in our daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly routines is like being on a stage following the some planned, and some ad-libbed, scripts of our lives, acting out (performing) those life scripts, until that day, week, month, or year ends, just as a stage performance ends. It is important to know, and remember, that some days, weeks, months, or years, we may not always deliver our best performances, but then some days, weeks, months and years, we will rock it on the life stages we ascend. We need to realize, too, that when one performance of a day, week, month, or year, is over, it will be time for us to turn the page and begin a new chapter, a continuation of the already written days, weeks, months, or years of the uncompleted book of our life.

When we turn to that first page of 2025, we will notice that it will be blank. As happens in almost every new day we face, we are the writers of the pages and chapters in the novel of our life story. As in reading any book, we find some pages to be more interesting, exciting, sadder, happier, disappointing, challenging, rewarding, frustrating, fulfilling, joyful, and so much more. Our life’s novel, if written truthfully, will be filled with ups and downs, and the explanation of why that is, can be simply stated, “Because that’s the way it is.”

George Burns starred in a trilogy of movies where he played the Almighty God, and in the second movie, a little girl named Tracy, whom God chose to deliver His message, questioned God by asking, “Why do bad things happen?” God replied, “There can’t be good without bad, life without death, pleasure without pain. That’s the way it is. If I take sad away, happy has to go with it.” So, I guess God was telling Tracy, that it’s “Because that’s the way it is.”

That answer doesn’t mean that our lives should be defined by things that go wrong, or are bad, or by mistakes we’ve made, because, as God said in the movie, with every negative, there is a positive. We have the power to write more positive pages than negative ones. We have the power to get back in the saddle after falling off the horse. We have the power to make that next page, chapter, and/or volume of our life’s novel, full of the positive adjectives listed two paragraphs above.

So, as you turn the page to begin your journey on the road of 2025, and you get up on that stage playing a star again, remember that each day’s performance may not be stellar, but that’s okay, because we always have chances to do it again tomorrow, next week, next month and/or next year. Life gives us a new blank page to fill each day, that always can be, and maybe will be, better than the page before.

Wishing all of us full volumes of blank pages in ’25, that we can fill with wonder and joy. Happy New Year, all!!