Contributed by Laura Rios.

As I sit to write this, I’m looking out through the patio door at the neighborhood treetops showing all kinds of colors: white and pink blossoms, the reddish color of new buds on the maple trees, and the bright new green best called “spring green”. The varied colors bring a welcome change of scenery after the starkness of winter. Nature is making its fresh start, as it does just about this time every year without fail.

Some fresh starts, like springtime, are connected in some way to the calendar. We’re all familiar with the first of January. Many of us establish New Year’s resolutions, determined to make positive changes in our lives as we set off on a new journey around the sun. Perhaps our birthdays spark a similar motivation in some of us.

Late summer or early fall brings the start of a new school year for most young people. If it means attending a completely different school, it’s truly a fresh start. These new beginnings can be both exciting and stressful; either way, they rarely come as a surprise, and we generally take them in stride.

Other new beginnings have nothing to do with dates or moon phases. These fresh starts can be brought about by the ends of something, often due to circumstances beyond our control, and they can cause major upheavals: perhaps the loss of a job, learning that we suddenly need to move, or finding ourselves newly single. It’s natural to feel adrift in such times and face these enforced fresh starts with some trepidation. Maybe we nurse some self-pity. Where to start? Might we glimpse some positivity in these situations so that we can find a little excitement and less dread in such cases? After all, when one door opens, there is usually another one that opens somewhere else. It may be up to us to figure out where that is.

Or maybe we simply feel compelled to make some changes. Possibly we’ve decided we don’t like what we’re doing, what we’re eating, how we look or how we feel. Luckily, we are largely in charge here, and all we need to do to begin anew is to put one foot in front of the other and set out on a new path.

As we search for the next open door, or to pursue a road untraveled, it can be helpful to view new beginnings in a positive light. Fortunately, we don’t have to do this alone. Many wise people have pondered this very subject, and maybe you’ll find some pearls of wisdom in their words. Here then, in no particular order, are quotes intended to lend support if you’re facing a fresh start, large or small.

So, set all that old baggage down and let the past serve only as a memory from which you’ve learned. Take a deep breath. Ready… set … go!

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” – L. M. Montgomery

“The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.” – Arnold Bennett

“Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.” – Daphne Rose Kingma

“No, this is not the beginning of a new chapter… this is the beginning of a new book! That first book is already closed, ended, and tossed into the seas; this new book is newly opened, has just begun!” – C. Joybell

“Stay away from what might have been and look at what can be.” – Marsha Petrie Sue

“It’s never too late to become who you want to be. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.” – Mary Pickford

“Although now one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” – Carl Bard

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.” – Plato

And finally:

“The beginning is always today.” – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley