Here it is -- a New Year -- 1997 -- what will it bring to us and what did 1996 mean to us? This is a time to sit back and think about one's life, what one achieved last year, what one achieved last month, last week, yesterday, last hour. Did I make it a better world for others? Did I achieve things that I wanted to achieve? Did I sometimes do things that I wished that I hadn't done? Did I move forward in my life? Were my accomplishments many or few?
It is also the time to look forward to the New Year and beyond. What is the most important thing that I want to accomplish next hour, tomorrow, next week, next month, this year and forever. What are my goals in life? How can I help others who are less fortunate than I am? How can I become the things that people expect me to be while at the same time being true to myself. Am I where I want to be in my life and if not what can I do to get there. How can I accept others for being who and what they are - no more no less.
As I grow older the years go faster - it seems only yesterday that I had trouble writing 1996 on checks and other documents and now I must learn to write 1997. A small thing, to change a 6 to a 7, but not an indication of the differences that the year made to my family. I use "my family" to include all of you who receive this message. Some of us white represent English, German, Irish, Scottish, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Mexican, Persian and American Indian (and combinations thereof). There are those who are Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese. There are those who are Black and represent their African heritage. We are Christian, Buddhists, Shinto, Jewish, Catholic and Islamic. I am sure that I left out some nationalities, races and/or religions and for that I say it was not with any intention to leave someone out, I just may not know.
Yet we are all the same in most important ways. Two arms, two legs, two eyes, a skin, hair, etc. etc. etc. If, as I someday hope to do, we were all to get together in one room we would see the similarities and the differences. Yet the love that we would have for each other should transcend those obvious differences. We should base our feelings on not what we see with our eyes but what we see with our feelings. It is what is inside us that is important. We should respect the differences that are obvious to the eye. We should accept the beliefs that each of us have. Our beliefs will not be the same because we were raised in different cultures, with different parents, with different expectations, with different love. We need to learn to love the differences as well as the similarities. We all are children of the world.
Some of you I know very well and some of you I have only met on the Internet. Some of you were given to me by being my biological family, some by living with me for an extended time. Some of you by just short visits to our home and/or we to your home. Some of you I have only spent an evening with. Some of you I have only exchanged Email with and maybe some of you I may never get to meet face to face. Yet each of you are important to me, each of you are part of this family. You are the ones I like to spend my time with as well as the time of Michiko, Dai-chan and Mari-chan. Each of you are important - you are the chosen and I am honored to know each of you.
1997 - what are we going to do this year. Michiko is taking three weeks off in June and we may have not decided for sure what we are going to do. We may decide to stay in the US and do some travelling. As usual we don't make unchangeable plans. Nothing is for sure until we get on an airplane and only then do we know we are on our way to someplace.
Michiko will continue to work for American Airlines. I will continue to do some computer consulting. Dai-chan is in Kindergarten and Mari-chan goes to daycare/preschool.
I will keep up what is going on in the computer world and hope to add more sound options to my correspondence. I have the availability to send voice messages with my Email but there is only one person that I know that can receive sound. I would like to have more conversation over the Internet using Microsoft Net Meeting. It is now available with video if we had the required equipment and software. Maybe we could set up a conference call sometime and have several on at the same time. I am not sure that we can talk or see more then one other person at the same time with the present programs but I think soon we will be able to have several on at the same time. Unfortunately no all of you have access to a computer at all and others have access only at work. As time goes on most of you will probably have better access. Wouldn't it be fun to have Moscow, Japan, China and maybe other places all on at the same time all talking to each other at the same time.
We ARE the world!
Our love to all of you for a Happy New Year and hope that this year is better then the last and that all your New Years be happy and prosperous.
Don, Michiko, Dai-chan and Mari-chan
