I wrote a piece this morning about New Year’s Eve, and what it means to me. In the course of writing it, as often happens to me, I realized what it was that I really wanted for myself and for all of the people I love in the New Year of 2016 (or the wonderful name of Hogmagog in the ancient world) was this:

What I most want for myself in 2016 is to make mistakes.

Mistakes are the cobblestones of life for me, the foundation of spirituality and learning. They have defined, shaped, altered, threatened and enriched my life at every turn. They have humbled me and torn open my eyes.

If mistakes were gold, I would be wealthy beyond imagination. There has been nothing more valuable, liberating and important for me than the mistakes I have made. And I could not begin to even count or list them – things I’ve said, done, people I’ve hurt, left behind, misunderstood, bad things I’ve written, poor decisions, awful impulses and foolish rationales, mistakes of blindness, denial and loss of perspective.

Mistakes made in rage and anger, in confusion and hurt. A river of mistakes for one lifetime, a  Tsunami of mistakes.

I am sorry for the people who never make mistakes, acknowledge them, or admit them. They are the hollow men of T.S. Eliot’s wonderful poem.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

If I am making mistakes, then I am alive. I am doing something, trying something, risking something. I have never respected the people who never make mistakes, they are the hollow men and women. They know nothing, they will go nowhere. Anyone who has never made a mistake, said Albert Einstein, has never tried anything new.

If I am making mistakes, then I am making new things. I am trying new things.

If I am making mistakes, then I am learning, pushing myself, changing yourself, bettering myself, growing and changing the world around me.

If I am making mistakes, I am changing, doing things I’ve never done before. Doing things, answering the call to life, the call to adventure.

If I am making mistakes, then I am creative, I am creating.

If I am making mistakes, then I am learning about love and opening my life to it, because there is no love without mistakes. If I am making mistakes, I am healing.

I was talking to a friend recently who was angry with me, telling me of the mistakes I have made. I know, I said, I admit them, have written about them. I can only let them go.

We are taught to deny our mistakes, hide them and apologize for them. I have done a lot of apologizing in my life, but I think I am done with that. Mistakes are as natural to human beings as breathing, and every one that I have made has made me wiser and stronger and better. Mistakes don’t make me evil or stupid, they mean that I am human.

There is hope for me yet. There is no shame in conceding mistakes, there is great reward. The world would be a vastly better place of the powerful men and women who run it could admit their mistakes and learn from them.

So I hope to make many mistakes in the coming year. That is how you will know I am alive and working hard.

The great thing about setting the making of mistakes a goal for New Year’s  is that this is a goal I can achieve without worry.

I have one friend who wants to give up drinking for 2016, another who wants to drop 25 pounds, one more who wants to make peace with his siblings and stop fighting with them. Many people seek fame and fortune.

I think of all of them, I am the lucky one.

I will have achieved my New Year’s Resolution by lunchtime tomorrow.