On the dawn of 2018, I bring you a quote from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who was expressing his deepest desire for the new year of his time. In his 1882 work, The Gay Science, Nietzsche says:
For the new year...On this day, all allow themselves to express their wish and their most beloved thought. So I too want to say what I wished for from myself today, and what thought first ran across my heart this year—what thought shall be for me the ground, guarantee, and sweetness of all further life! I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things—in this way I will be one of those who make things beautiful...to sum it up: some day I want to be only a Yes-sayer!
We have great power to change and influence many things, both in ourselves and in this world, and working toward positive changes is admirable and important. But for those things that we cannot change, we still have the power to see beauty, even in the ugly and tragic. In saying "Yes!" to the world as it is and must be, we free ourselves from unnecessary suffering, and as Nietzsche says, we become one of those who make things beautiful.
