By Frank James, Special to the Milwaukee Times
The year 2025 is coming to a blissful end. The year 2026 is ready to enter the room. A new year brings new opportunities for growth and achievement. The ending of one year and ringing in a new one is the perfect opportunity to ring out your old issues and bring new confidence and peace into your life. Use the coming of 2026 to reinvent yourself.
The old you has been with you for as long as you can remember. The old you has been there through thick and thin. It is time to allow the old you to retire into blessed oblivion. This is not a knock on the old you. The old you did its job well. The old you has gotten you to where you are today. Be like a grateful employer and give the old you a nice severance package and allow the old you to retire. Be like the wise employer and bring in a new better you to take you to higher states of success.
People hold on to the old and attempt to put new ideas in old minds. This is a formula for abject failure. There are many adages that discount this. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks is one. You have the perfect opportunity to retire many old thoughts and behaviors since 2026 is coming through the door. Be honest and shame the devil. Are the old hang-ups and habits truly allowing you to be the person you really want to be? Are you reaching your full potential, or living the way that was programmed into you by parents and society? Are you happy, or just smiling because everyone says you are doing well? 2026 is the chance to step into your own life and enjoy what you like doing.
You do not have to quit your job, or leave your spouse in order to create a new you. The new you may actually excel at your job and be a better spouse to your partner. Your boss may actually appreciate the change, if you have a habit of shifting workloads to ensure you can leave early on Friday. Your spouse may actually stop thinking about divorce, or the strip club, if you give up the need to complain every day about nothing. The new you can be free of all the old habits and thought processes that up until now have been holding you back.
The new you may lose touch with some old friends. Some family members may have to be allowed to exit stage left. This is not a bad thing. It is a sign that you are growing and becoming who you want to be and not the person they want you to be. The new you may not want to sit and discuss what famous people are doing, or gossip relentlessly. The new you may decide to use your former gossip time working out to create a new body to go along with the new mind. There is nothing wrong with allowing others to keep their issues to themselves. Let people go if they cannot accept the happy, evolving, true you. There are new friends who will accept you. The important thing is that, you will accept yourself. That is the blessing of becoming a new you.
Out with the old and in with the new. 2025 is headed for the history books. 2026 is a blank slate, a new opportunity for you to create, and be what you want. Will you carry the 2025 version of yourself with its issues, and habits into a new year? Or will you finally break free and send the old you into retirement with a shiny gold watch? The choice, as always, is yours.
Frank James IV © 2025
beingfrankwithfrank@gmail.com
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the writer and not of the Milwaukee Times Weekly Newspaper or HT Group, LLC, its staff or management. “Being Frank” is a bi-weekly column exclusive to the Milwaukee Times Weekly Newspaper.
