Day Three Hundred and Sixty Five: One Good Year

Just shy of 92,000 words, over 170 pages long, this is the end of my blog.

As I wrote this blog, I kept a quote at the bottom of the page that particularly struck me as I was writing. I found it in an article that I don’t even remember reading. It was something about music or dinner or something. (I read so much.) Anyways, it’s been sitting with me for a while now so I figure I will share it with you:

“Humankind, in Yiddish terms, can be divided, more or less, into two distinct classes: shlimazels and shlemiels. Very loosely translated, shlemiels knock things off tables and onto the laps of shlimazels.”

Not what you were expecting, is it?

Well, this year of blogging has become about a lot for me. It’s been about being a better person, about loving myself and those around me, about identifying the things I can and cannot change. It’s been about the constant war within my own body and the constant battle against the world of injustice. It’s been about puppies and roommates and boyfriends.

But mostly it’s been about shlimazels and shlemiels. And about turning myself and the things I do from shlimazel to shlemiel. I talk about the shlimazels I have met (I’m talking to you, Weasel . And the ass from the other night.) And about the shlemiels I’ve met as well (like the guy helping the grandmother across the street.) And about thinking when my actions could be possibly knocking things off tables and into the laps of others.

This year, human kind has had to deal with a lot of shit (pardon my French) being knocked into our laps. We’ve watched some pretty epic shlimazels do some pretty horrible things. We’ve seen bombs going off at sporting events, children killed in their classrooms, guilty men get away with murder, typhoons, earthquakes and hurricanes. We watched several countries lose themselves to war, death, famine and chaos.

That’s a lot of stuff on our laps.

And it’s opened a lot of wounds. We’re more paranoid, more distrusting and angrier that we’ve ever been. We point our fingers and blame Obama, MTV, Miley Cyrus, religion, science and the NSA for senselessness which is, as it has always been, simply senseless. And we’ve opened a lot of doors. Every year more states allow gay marriage, gun control laws are getting stricter, we are examining ourselves and our values as a country and as a people in a way that they had never been examined.

At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves: are we a shlimazel or a shlemiel? Is what we are doing right now for the betterment of ourselves and our world? Or are we just pushing things off tables and into the laps of better people?

Earlier in this blog, I made a call to arms. I asked everyone to make this next year their One Good Year. This has been my One Good Year. I’ve learned way more about myself and my life than I would have ever learned passively. And I have left it out there, in the world of internets, for everyone else to see. Now I’m upping the call, to my friends, and to myself. I no longer want to settle for One Good Year.

Now I’m demanding One Good Life.

So, as my last Challenge to my Readers, I’m asking for this: Go out there. Do what good you can. Help where you can. Love and trust in yourself above everyone else. Never apologize for who you are, what you believe, the things you like or the people you love. Never, ever give up on your dreams. Rescue a dog or a cat. Rescue a person. Be a shlemiel and stand up to the shlimazels. Have One Good Year, live One Good Life.

Make One Good World.