New Year Thoughts

In the past week we've wished family and friends near and far good wishes for both Christmas and the New Year. Greeting cards tend to put the two together as though they are just a couple of special days in the whole 365 days of the year. We prepare for and celebrate Christmas in whatever way is important to each of us and by December 26 it's already fading into the past.

The new year is another matter. While your New Year's Eve celebrations may be fading (or you hope that headache soon will), you now have a whole year stretching before you like an open book at the beginning of a school year. Remember getting new books, all clean pages, just waiting to be written on? Just like our new year, with opportunities to do or experience so many new things or continue and expand on things begun previously. Will it be a new job, home, location, hobby, family or friends?

Do you start the year with good intentions but soon start slipping back into 'old' habits and feel discouraged? Remember that EVERY new day brings new opportunities, not just January 1. If your good intentions are slipping by January 15, you can always start again on January 16. Marlene has written a very inspiring piece about not aiming so high that we become discouraged, but to start each project with a small step, which will lead on to the next step, and so on until its completion.

I wish each and every one of you success and happiness in whatever you undertake this year, and hope that at the end of the year you will feel a sense of having lived your life to the full.