We spent our Christmas holiday in the Palm Springs area, with family, where there are an extraordinary number of resale shops. Their rows of barely perfect second or maybe third hand goods are rediscovered by new consumers every day who are taken with the flaws that usually accompany these products and look forward to repairing and enjoying them.

The Japanese have a term for this concept that they refer to as kintsukuroi. In practice this translates to an art form of repairing broken pottery, with a special lacquer and powdered gold, that highlights the breakage as part of the object. The value and beauty of the object come from recognizing and honoring its travails and imperfections.

Despite our best efforts to have flawless lives, we also wind up with more trials and tribulations than we care to experience. We typically work to put aside or minimize those aspects of our lives.

As we enter into 2019, I among many of you have envisioned a year that has plenty of success and few predicted problems. Give that success mantra right now, it might also be good to consider what challenges we faced in 2018 that changed us and how those changes made us stronger to face this next year. I can name quite a few for myself.

I wish you blessings for the New Year and hope that the dreams you imagine come true and that the unseen challenges you face get equally woven into the fabric of your year.

© Richard Citrin, All rights reserved, 2019

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