My list for the new year

The new year has arrived without fanfare. We plattelanders have survived and 2023 is behind us. Now we wonder expectantly: What does this new year hold?

No one can know. Everyone is uncertain. However, it is necessary to take a positive approach to 2024, so I have compiled a list of positive things. It’s not a list of New Year’s resolutions, but rather a feel-good list.

In the past, compiling lists was never one of my strong points; I always relied on my memory. But this changed in the platteland, because other things demand your attention. Fewer visits to the shops have made lists more important. Shopping lists, in particular.

Now, at the beginning of the new year, I will compile mine. It is a list for life, because I plan to live it fully!

Suddenly the word gratitude comes up. Gratitude for my family and friends who have been spared; gratitude to once again be walking a road with them. Gratitude that I am a blessed and healthy plattelander. Gratitude for the nature here in the bushveld that makes me feel small and insignificant. Gratitude for the birds and all the ways in which they survive. The rain. Too many things to mention.

I continue to think and service comes up. I write it down. I wonder: What is “service” and what must I do? Then I understand that being of service means helping wherever one can.

Humility goes hand in hand with “service”. I realise that one can’t be of service if one is not humble.

There could be many more additions to my list. Then, almost like a light being switched on, I understand that I can’t complete my list without the necessary

wisdom. I add it immediately. Because I lack the wisdom to make the right choices in life.