Unfurled

It's the last day of 2010.

In the next 48 hours (or so) I will have created my goals for 2011.

I say created, but really when I put pen to paper these are not so much "created" as they are the distilled version of a great deal of thinking and talking and ruminating.

The one difference is this year I will unfurl them - show them to others, make them perhaps not public but not available.

This difference is a similar difference to that of a flag furled versus unfurled. Furled it is tightly clinging to the pole. It does not show what it is. It cannot gloriously flutter in the breeze, it cannot rally the spirits of those watching it, it cannot inspire.

It does not do the thing it was designed to do.

Will I reveal everything to everyone? I doubt it - some goals (or objectives, or intentions - call them what you will) remain too personal except between myself and God. But will I reveal some - certainly.

There is something inspiring - at least to myself - to see a flag full out blowing in the breeze, rippling and straining in the wind as it pulls on the flag rope. Something that makes my own spirits soar.

So this year I will march out, banners unfurled, to meet the year. If I go down, it will at least not be for a lack not knowing what I intended to achieve.