Getting started

“I don’t do goals,” I say when it’s my turn to introduce myself. A thin blanket beneath me, my legs folded, I am sitting in a circle of women at my local yoga studio. We are at a workshop “setting intentions for the New Year” with “a feminine approach to goal setting.” I am skeptical. I am more of a “let the destination find you” kind of person. I am better at beginnings.

This could be why I opened a book on beginnings a few weeks earlier with such feverish hope. Beginnings: The First Seven Days of the Rest of Your Life, by Steve Wiens, is an ode to human goodness and our perpetual potential for fresh starts.

Using the creation narrative from Genesis 1 as a template for how new life grows, Wiens moves through the themes of light (day one), expanse (day two), seeds (day three), seasons (day four), monsters (day five), us (day six), and stop (day seven). The epilogue describes how resurrection (day eight) is the actualization of all that potential planted within us.