A new year and a time for new beginnings. I have always loved the new year, I see it as a time to be grateful for what has passed and to look forward to whatever is to come, others see it as a chance to start a fresh page and to reassess their lives. I’ve never been one for resolutions; anything seems possible on January 1st and many, dazzled by this glow of optimism set themselves unachievable challenges and then end up spending February feeling deflated.
Making changes, chasing dreams should not be January 1st specific or even held off until Monday morning. Every day is a new day, a fresh start, a clean page, and an opportunity to try something new, chase your dreams. If I were pushed to make a resolution, I would say seize the day, not just today, seize every day.
Having said all this, we did get together this week to think about the new year and whether we had any goals for the next 365 days. It was a remarkably interesting conversation and produced some quite surprising suggestions. We all agreed that we wanted to be happy, that we wanted to stay busy and look after our health and our mobility, we all agreed that we would like to get out and visit friends and family and to use our time wisely and learn new skills. Mary decided that as well as being happy, she would like to stop swearing and drink more wine. This could be quite a challenge at 99 years old, but I have no doubt that she will achieve at least 50% of it.
So here we are in 2022, however you are intending to spend it, whatever you want to achieve, make it happy, make it count and be grateful because even though it has its ups and its downs, life is rather good really, and it’s worth living well, not just on January 1st but all year round.