Twenty years ago, I received a devastating phone call on Easter Sunday. Jack, a close friend in his early fifties, had passed away. The caller had no other details. No cause of death. Jack was just gone.
Shocked, I spent Sunday evening calling around trying to get more information. None of our mutual friends knew anything, either. On Monday morning, I decided to call Jack’s workplace to see if his colleagues knew what had happened. Imagine my shock when I heard, “Good morning. This is Jack….”
“Jack! You’re alive!” I exclaimed.
“Uh, yes,” he replied. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I repeated to him the crushing call I had received the day before. Eventually, we realized that, sadly, the person who had called me suffered from dementia and early Alzheimer’s. But Jack was alive! And twenty years later, he still lives.
Ever since, I have celebrated the Monday after Easter as “Resurrection Monday.” It sounds silly, but not really. The Christian church has always debated when Easter should be observed. In fact, Eastern Orthodox Christians won’t be celebrating the resurrection until Sunday, May 5…still more than a month away.
Regardless of whether you celebrated last Sunday or last Monday, will celebrate next month, or won’t celebrate at all, I want to use this season of resurrection and the celebration of spring as a reminder that it is never too late to resurrect your goals and dreams.
We are now a quarter through 2024. But Lee Cockerell, Former Executive Vice-President of Walt Disney World, is fond of saying that “The New Year starts every morning.” With this perspective, resurrection isn’t reserved just for Easter. You can resurrect your dead goals and dreams, not just once a year, but every single day—breathing life into any aspiration that lies dormant.
If you’ve had setbacks in 2024 and already feel defeated, know that your dreams and goals aren’t dead. They are simply waiting—waiting to be resurrected. Course correct by doing a calendar correction. Happy New Year! Happy Resurrection Wednesday! Because any day can be New Year’s Day. Any day can be Resurrection Monday. Hope and renewal are not bound by time or circumstance. Don’t be constrained by the calendar. Your mindset shapes your reality. The possibilities are endless when we choose to breathe life into our dreams, one day at a time.
In July, Lyndsey and I will be back at Walt Disney World. There will be a juxtaposition of seasons as I am speaking at an event for a large company that specializes in providing premier holiday decorating and Christmas lights installation across the country. It will be hot. It will be humid. It will be Christmas…in July?
But that’s okay. By then, the jellybeans and Peeps from Easter will be long gone. Come August, a mere month later, Disney will already be hosting its annual Halloween parties. Soon enough, we’ll get to see our friend Jack, again.
No. Not my friend Jack Erickson from The Nightmare After Easter. Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Or New Year’s.
Or whatever day you decide.
