Happy Squidoo New Year to you! In my quest to learn more about writing creatively on the internet, I came across Squidoo in November and decided to jump in and make a lens. Squidoo is a website designed to make it easy for anyone to set up a single page on a topic he or she knows or cares a lot about for free. Just today, I noticed that a lens I had made titled "New Year’s resolutions: Put it in writing", had almost 500 views in one day. It was only when I started reading the congratulation emails from visitors that I realized my lens was featured as Lens of the Day on New Year’s Eve! This is quite an honor when you consider there are perhaps over seven hundred thousand lenses and this is my fourth lens.
Almost every day, Squidoo's Editor in Chief, Megan Casey, highlights one lens that is unique in topic, approach, personality, tools or timing and therefore stands out from the crowd. Here’s part of the intro she wrote on the Squidoo blog.
“Resolutions are daunting things. They're there to haunt you when you don't follow up. They're meant to push you to reach for something outside of your comfort zone. And at the end of the day, no one knows about them but you.
So if you're making some promises to yourself for 2009, this lens will help you write them down. It's a straightforward, delightfully simple gathering of inspiration for journaling your thoughts for the new year.”
The last few days of 2008, I was compelled to literally clean my closet and let go of old energy, honoring the end of a cycle, as a way of embracing what has come before and all of the energy that has gone in to it. My greatest treasures are my journals, old song lyrics, photos, and writing. Filing and sorting, revisiting what I fondly call my song children, photos of my actual children when much younger, and loves of yesteryear was like taking a very deep sweet breath in and a long and loving exhale. It is interesting that taking the time to embrace all that has passed and finding a place for the emotions and memories had the potential to also release them, to open a space for the new creations and a clearer impetus to move forward.
We live in such promising times. My New Year's wish is that individually and collectively we all use 2009 to bring forth our best in service to this changing world. Want to try something new and fun? Go ahead and make a lens of your own!
