By IkeChukwu Unegbe
Another year turns the corner so as to allow a ‘new’ year to emerge. Excitement naturally fills the air. Many look forward to the New Year, hoping it would usher them into the longed-for life of bliss. ‘Old things have passed away…’, they jubilantly echo. These ‘old things’ must include the difficulties: painful experiences, dashed hopes, missed business projections, etc. Strangely, these ‘old things’ often do not include a desire for inner transformation by the person who is the real architect of all things. Yet, for anything to change for the good, man/woman must first change inwardly.
The average person desires that all those challenges are left behind in the ‘old’ year, and new chapters of great fortunes open up in the New Year. These wishes echo powerfully during the prayers and wishes expressed at the gatherings of 31st December eve; either in prayer homes or at drinking lounges. Toasts go up in the air for the triumph over the better forgotten ordeals of the year slowly fading away. When people shout ‘happy new year’, there is the hidden desire that everything should be smooth sailing and enchanting in the New Year…
Resolutions, therefore, follow, ordered in the manner that would ensure that the mistakes of the past may not be repeated. In some local settings, cooking utensils, clothes, and homes are cleaned up in readiness for the New Year. Often, the inner self, the bowel (vessel) from where thoughts emanate, are left untouched.
In all these preparations, the most ambitious longing is often that the New Year should bring forth more uplifting benefits in the experiences she plans to unveil. These experiences are anticipated mostly in outward activities of businesses and vocations. All the perceived ‘losses’ of the past years are expected to be fully regained. ‘It was those losses that made the past year awfully bad’, they lament!
In reality, there are no bitter lessons in life; whether in the present, past, or future. All experiences are good. We are all meant to grow through what we are going through. This growth happens through those lessons garnered from the experiences. Often, the most harsh or difficult of those experiences eventually help us the best. They help to bake us the same way bread and cookies emerge, ready for consumption from ovens.
Every day of our lives should be seen as being made to undertake learning sessions in a class. We always say that life is a great teacher. Each day presents as a form of classroom for life to teach us lessons. The lessons, as far as life is concerned, are delivered with the highest precision and dedication of love. Creation and life do not care how we feel about the module of each class.
Seen this way, therefore, there are, in truth, no bitter lessons in life—only experiences whose value depends on our willingness to learn from them. Every event that confronts us, whether welcomed or resisted, carries within it the potential to refine our character, deepen our understanding, recognition, and elevate our humanity. What we often describe as “bitter” is not the lesson itself, but our refusal to recognize its purpose within the order of creation.
Life, governed by immutable laws, does not act in malice. The Almighty Creator, also, does not punish anyone. Painful experiences are not punishments arbitrarily imposed; they are signals, corrections, and opportunities for growth. When events expose our weaknesses, pride, impatience, or misplaced desires, they are offering us insight into what must be changed. They are introducing us to ourselves, like as if with a mirror . Bitterness arises when we cling to old patterns, resisting the very instruction that could lead us toward greater harmony with the laws of life. With a pure volition, even hurtful deeds from others eventually transmute into beneficial outcomes.
As a new year unfolds, we are invited to shift our perception. Instead of asking why certain experiences occurred, we may ask what they came to teach us. When lessons are accepted in humility, they lose their sting and become sources of inner strength. What once seemed like loss transforms into gained wisdom; what felt like failure becomes beneficial guidance. This way, one can truly see that there are no losses in life.
Creation continually assists humanity through experiences, yet it never forces learning. Growth remains a matter of free will and personal choice. To learn is to rise; to refuse to learn from our experiences is to repeat the lesson in harsher forms. Every ladder of growth must be fully experienced or one is retained at that spot.
The promise of the New Year lies not in the absence of trials but in our readiness to recognize every experience as purposeful help—guiding us toward a nobler, refined, and more conscious way of being.
The realistic New Year resolutions should be those that joyfully welcome the year with all her baggages, realizing that events are neutral occurrences; only our actions or reactions shape them into forms. At the end of it all, they hold immeasurable blessings of redemptive values. We must ensure that we do not sow new ‘seeds’ that may bring painful karma our way, such as hurting other human beings in the pursuit of our own earthly desires. As you call it into the woods, so it must echo back at you.
Ikechukwu Unegbe Esq.
WhatsApp – 08033201244
Reflections series
