Tag Archives: cycle

Cycles

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Cycle:

1)   An interval of time during which a sequence of a recurring succession of events or phenomena is completed.

2)   A course or series of events or operations that recur regularly and usually lead back to the starting point.

3)   A circular or spiral arrangement.

 

Well, it’s August 1, 2018 and yesterday was July 31, 2018. Today is the first day of a new month and yesterday was the last day of an old month! Where I live, yesterday was the last day of summer vacation for students and today is the first day of a new school year! All of this reminds me of the fact that life is lived in cycles; and that’s a good thing!

Have you ever thought about what life would be like if there were no cycles? What if a day never ended and there was no night for rest? What if the night was enduring and there was no morning to look forward to? What if the seasons never changed and it was always winter, summer, spring, or fall? We often take it for granted, but every day, we should take time to pause and be thankful for the cycles of life.

The cycles of life provide opportunities for new beginnings. Every morning when I awake and find myself not dead, I am thankful because I understand that to be one of God’s ways of granting me forgiveness for the mistakes and failures I made the day before. Every new day is a new opportunity to ‘get it right!’ Every month is a new cycle! Every year is a new cycle!

But, the problem with many people is that they fail to take advantage of the cycles of life. Instead of taking the opportunity to have a new beginning at a new cycle, they drag the old into the new and make the new just like the old! As they do this, they guarantee their tomorrow will be just as miserable as their today, which was just as miserable as their yesterday! People who do this are stuck in a rut, and I heard someone describing a rut as nothing but a grave with sides but no ends!

I don’t know where you are in your life, I don’t know what you are going through, but I want to encourage you to let this first day of the month remind you of the cycles of life. If you’re in a depressed situation right now, just remember, it’s just part of the cycle! If you’re down, surely and eventually, you will rise again! If you’re in an elevated position right now, be thankful and enjoy it, but also remember to make provisions and plans for the down-time, for the old saying is true: “What goes up, must come down!”

It is the cycles of life that make life interesting and provide opportunities for change, growth, and progress! Life would be boring and monotonous indeed if it were not for the cycles. So, don’t fight the cycles; don’t fight the changes, but rather embrace them and use them to your advantage! Use the cycles to refresh and rejuvenate! Use the cycles to re-evaluate and re-tool! Don’t wait until January 1 to start a new cycle, you can start a new cycle at any time! At the beginning of a new month, at the beginning of a new day, at the beginning of a new hour, and yes, even at the beginning of a new moment! There is an old saying that says we only live one day at a time, but actually, that is not true! We can’t even live a day at a time; we can only live one moment at a time! Thus, even our breathing is part of a cycle; with every breath we take, we have the opportunity to start over again!

Why Does This Keep Happening To Me?

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Some time ago I was watching an episode of a TV show called, “The Outer Limits.” For those of you who may not be familiar with it, the theme and plot was similar to a show that was very popular years ago called, “The Twilight Zone.” Well, this particular episode was about a young man who somehow got caught up in a “time loop!” He went go through the daily routine of going to work, doing all of the other things that people do on a normal day. However, when he woke up the next morning, much to his dismay, he discovered that it really wasn’t a new day, but rather the very same day that he had just went through! It got to the point that he could predict what would happen next because everything turned out the same as they had the previous time he had lived that day!

Well, in some cases, fact is stranger than fiction! Sometimes in life, we go through the same things over and over again, so much to the point that we ask ourselves: “Why does this keep happening to me?” Perhaps you are suffering from a continual string of bad relationships or successive failures. Whatever the case, it seems like it’s a repeating cycle over and over again! You keep getting involved with the same-type situations and with the same-type people! It’s the exact same situation that you were in before, but the names have been changed! It’s really the same (type) lady but she’s just wearing a different dress!

One reason for this is because most of us tend to live our lives in a closed-end loop! We never dare to venture outside of the circle of the familiar. You’d be surprised, but people who constantly find themselves in negative situations and circumstances, for the most part, actually placed themselves in those situations and circumstances by design! You see, subconsciously we will put forth more effort to stay with what is familiar to us, even if the familiar is bad for us!

Yet another reason for the closed-end loop is because many times, we fail to learn the lessons that life is trying to teach us. Unlike some educational institutions, life will not promote us to the next level if the lessons of the present level have not been learned and mastered. So, we keep making the same mistakes because we fail to learn the lesson that is inherent within the mistake! Once we learn the lesson, the mistake has served its purpose and we no longer make that “same” mistake!

So, when will you move to the next level? When will you break out of your closed-in loop? Only when you learn the lesson and understand the reason why this keeps happening to you!