New Beginnings

Sometimes it feels like life can make the entire world seem like an unfriendly place. There are times when, no matter what you do, it seems like someone is working against you. You do your best to treat others well, do the right thing, and go about your life, yet you still encounter people who are unkind, judgmental, or even determined to make things more difficult than they need to be.

After a while, it can change the way you look at the world. You begin to expect the worst from people. You end up becoming guarded. You start to carry things with you that were never worth carrying in the first place.

I’ve been thinking about new beginnings lately.

I took this photograph of an American lady butterfly, and seeing it resting there with its wings open, having emerged from being something else, brought me a sense of belonging. It reminded me of something I know deep inside with certainty—that all of this is temporary.

A butterfly doesn’t reach that point in its life cycle without change. What it was before had to disappear for something entirely different to emerge.

Perhaps there are times in our own lives when we need to allow that to happen too.

Not every change in life is something to fear. The ending of one chapter, the loss of a relationship, a change in direction, or simply deciding that you’re no longer going to carry the weight other people have placed upon you can become the beginning of something far better.

We can’t control whether the people around us choose kindness. We can’t make everyone understand us, and we can’t spend our lives trying to change the minds of people who have already decided what they want to believe. All we can control is how we move forward.

I don’t want the people who are unkind around me to make me unkind. I don’t want someone else’s bitterness to become mine. And I don’t want difficult experiences to convince me that the entire world is that way.

There is still goodness in the world. There are still good people. There are still ways to experience the world that allow us to continue seeing hope and all that is good. There is music to make, things to create, places to explore, and moments when we can simply be aware of a butterfly resting on the ground and stop for a few seconds to notice it.

A new beginning doesn’t always arrive as some enormous event.

Sometimes it is simply deciding to open your arms to whatever comes next.

To leave behind what no longer deserves to follow you.

And to keep moving forward with the belief that something good is right around the corner, resting on the forest floor.

© Nathaniel Maloney. All rights reserved.