Back when we started our photography studio, we decided to eschew traditional holiday cards and focus on New Year’s instead. It’s a lot easier – pretty much everyone celebrates the new year. Plus, New Year’s has always been one of my favorite holidays – a clean slate, a new beginning, a chance to start fresh.
For years, our New Year’s cards have ended with a wish for peace, prosperity & joy. I’d never really given much thought to why I picked that phrase. It just always felt right. I realized this morning, though, that wishing others peace, prosperity and joy is integral to the work I’m doing with this blog:
Peace
Obviously, I wish for world peace – who doesn’t? But in the context of the work I do here, I wish you the peace that’s necessary to be who you need to be. The freedom from conflict – with family, with friends, and most importantly with yourself – that lets you push yourself out into the world from a position of strength and confidence so you can do the good work you need to do.
Prosperity
Most people treat prosperity as a synonym for wealth but I think it’s more than that. The word prosper derives from the Old Latin pro spere “according to expectation” which comes from pro (for) + spes (hope), which derived from the Proto-Indo-European base, spei (to flourish or succeed). For hope, for flourishing, for success, for reaching our expectations. Now that’s a word I can get behind.
Joy
I wish us all the capacity to let go and truly rejoice; to celebrate our accomplishments – large and small. To keep our hopes and dreams before us but still appreciate where we are right now. It is through that letting go, that release, that we find the strength and resilience to overcome obstacles and push ourselves forward.
Wishing you all a wonderful 2011. May we all find peace, prosperity and joy in the coming year!
