The Measure of a Year

By Greg Hill

I have to admit, I have always gotten excited about the New Year. For me, the new year represents a new beginning and with that, new opportunities to better myself and the things to which I have dedicated myself.

We all enter the new year with resolutions of those things we want to accomplish. It’s like a farmer sowing his seeds with the anticipation of what the growing season might bring. It’s easy to sow the seeds, but more difficult to cultivate those seeds through their harvest at the end of the year.

When you start to think about it, a year really is a long time. They tend to stream by, sometimes much faster than we would like. The song Seasons of Love from the musical Rent begins with the following verse which made me think about the year ahead:

Five Hundred Twenty-Five ThousandSix Hundred Minutes

How Do You Measure - Measure A Year?

In Daylights - In Sunsets

In Midnights - In Cups Of Coffee

In Inches - In Miles

In Laughter - In Strife

Exactly, how do we measure a year? Is it four seasons? Twelve months? Three hundred sixty five days? Or as the song says, five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes? Or do you measure it somehow different? Is this the year you plan to retire? To get married? To have a child? Or simply to laugh more?

The end of the year and the beginning of another offers a logical opportunity to look back on the successes and failures of the past year and to contemplate those “resolutions” for the upcoming year. It’s easy to write some simple goals on a sheet of paper, yet it is hard to make meaningful changes. It’s even more difficult to publish your New Year’s resolutions for the world to see. But here they are my resolutions for 2008.

1) Read. I’m not talking the sports pages here. I’m talking about the classics, history, words that define the richness of our society.

2) Listen. There is much to learn by listening to others, even if you disagree.

3) Write. I have found few things I enjoy more than sitting down at the computer and writing. My mind is full of ideas. This is the year to put them on paper … or into the computer.

4) Help. Our community has needs and many of those needs can be addressed by volunteering.

5) Finish. It’s difficult sometimes to follow through on something to the very end. My resolution this year is to leave no task incomplete.

6) Develop. Like writing, my mind is full of ideas. Like a chess game, I have spent this past year moving pieces into place for what I hope are some fun and exciting projects ahead.

These may not seem like monumental goals, but by achieving these six things, I feel like I will be a more complete person living life to its fullest. For me, the daylights, the sunsets, the midnights and the cups of coffee are pleasures of life, not measures of life. The miles run and the laughs and smiles are things I am thankful for and fortunate to have.

The opportunity to serve as the Executive Director of the Kansas Dental Charitable Foundation is a great honor and one I don’t take lightly. My goal each day that I come to work is to end the day knowing that I have done something to better the foundation and to further its mission.

I welcome 2008 with its challenges and its rewards. I can’t see the future. However, if I can read, listen, write, help, finish, and develop for the next five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, I will have a wonderful story to tell on the eve of 2009.