New has a life of its own. New opportunities, new relationships, new seasons. The Sounder’s soccer season started last Saturday with a relatively meaningless game, which they lost.

But I was just as excited about that game as I was about the playoff game that ended last season. It’s new.

Talking with clients they are always interested in doing new things, not as interested in grinding out the old things.

There is this phase of new relationships, friendships what have you, that is damn exciting. Even when relationships go through a “phase change” things get interesting.

The new the novel, is something that our brains seek out. It’s chemistry, it’s biology. It’s silly. It’s inescapable.

We also retreat to the familiar. Everyone has a newness threshold where we go from exhilarated to exhausted. Peaked attention to overstimulated.

Learning to enjoy and embrace the new things in the brief window where they are new is something I’ve learned a lot about in the past year. With so many new experiences I’ve gotten a lot of practice enjoying the new.

But I’m always drawn back to balance, and I don’t know why. I think my Christian culture really has ingrained the “everything in moderation” vibe that calls me away from wherever I’m headed to middle ground.