Winter -the coldest season of the year

Living in Maine my entire life, winter has been a major part of the experience. Every year there is the challenge the weather throws at you. It interrupts your schedule, makes you plan, forces you to endure, and causes you to grow. It develops a toughness inside of you because if you can survive this challenge so easily, other challenges will be just as easy to conquer.  Every year, like it or not, winter comes, the days get short, the weather gets cold, and the challenge begins to not only survive the season but to thrive in it.  Sometimes it is difficult not to complain about the cold temperatures and the storms. But complaining doesn’t change anything; each day is going to be what you make it.  Add the positive aspects of winter to your awareness today in your thoughts, words, and actions.  Winter is not an enemy; it is a proving ground followed by the renewal of spring.

Tough Winter

There is no denying winter wears on you after a few months of temperatures below freezing and impending storm after impending storm. All of us live through this together and understand silently the strength it takes to experience the storm, clean up after it and move on with life. It is a lesson that you can apply in other areas of your existence quite easily. Storms come and most often on short notice. They make your life more difficult, and when they eventually pass away. Leaving behind a pile of snow as a reminder that this did, in fact, happen, and you did experience it. You survived.

This is a toughness that is built up throughout your life.  Winter is different from the last and provides its own storms. No two are exactly alike. There are different temperatures and levels of precipitation.  The timing is different, and that determines how much your life is affected.  In my youth, there was nothing as beautiful as a storm day. The town I lived in had a fire horn that had a particular call that announced no school. It was a special joy to know that you could stay in bed and not have to go to school that day. That joy still lives in me.  Mentally, winter can be a strain for a while, and you are just waiting for it to end.  But experience teaches you, and you will survive and be a little bit stronger for the experience. You learn the challenge will end eventually and give way to something better and more enjoyable.

The Beauty of Winter

Winter is not all snowstorms and freezing temperatures. Many great things come with it and make the world a more interesting place to live. When it snows, without any wind at all. The world is never as peaceful.  There is a quiet there which doesn’t exist any other time of the year.  It is one of the most peaceful times that exists in the world. If you listen, then you can hear the voices of those you knew, and they are with you for an ever so brief moment.  The sad part is most people are moving too fast, either physically or in their minds, to pay attention.  Pay attention.

There is also the way the world looks on a sunny morning after a snow event. The trees are frosted with snow, and the landscape is changed to something different, wonderful, and new. Covered with a blanket of opportunity.   Like most precious things, this is not going to last. Snow melts, seasons change, just like our lives, it is just a temporary joy.  Most don’t pay attention to this either. There is a powerful and unique picture worthy of the greatest painting right in front of you. And they are busy looking at their phone.  Pay attention because spring is coming, and the winter will be gone.  Leaving behind it a world that is clean and new.

Hope is the Thing

Even as winter sets in during the holiday months of November and December, there is hope that builds. The days will get longer. The temperatures will rise. The easy days of summer will come.  All of the benefits of those easier seasons, warmth, easy travel, sunny beaches, long days. All of these things derive more of their meaning and joy from the contrast that winter provides them.

Just like the challenges faced in life provide success with its sweetness, winter makes the other seasons more savory.  How many times have I felt like a 40-degree day in March was downright tropical?  Put the windows down in the car and felt the sunshine on my face like an old friend coming back to visit.  If you are a veteran of winter, every year, this happens.  The remainder of hope for spring, summer, and fall. The reminder of hope for your life and your dreams.  All things seem possible once you survive your winter.  That is because if you thrive in difficult times, all other times are easy.  Enjoy them all.

Our Strength of Winter

There is a strength inside of us all.  Some will never use it because their consciousness has a focus on other things.  But if you focus on the challenges that face you and take responsibility for managing them, that strength will reveal itself.  Some people hide at home during a snowstorm. Others ski down a slope and revel in the opportunity.  It is all a matter of perspective and what you allow yourself to accept from the winter experience.

You can let it control you, your attitude, and your life. Or you can control the way you react to it. That is a strength that is transferred into other areas of life.  There is a strength in all of us that needs a push to rise to the surface. Winter can be that push.  So be conscious of the wonder and power of winter. In your thoughts, words, and actions today.  Look at the beauty of the snow on the trees. Enjoy the unique silence of a snowfall.  Make a snow angel—ski your slopes.  Winter is the coldest season, but hope for the warmth that will inevitably follow in the spring will rise.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.  And that makes me happy. For it says no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger—something better, pushing right back.” ~Albert Camus

 “As call it winter, which being full of care,  Makes summer’s welcome, thrice more  wished, more rare.”  ~ William Shakespeare