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A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. ~Author Unknown
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. ~Benjamin Franklin
New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. ~Mark Twain
For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"
A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
~Edgar Guest
We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential. ~Ellen Goodman
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce |
| ASIN: 1945043032 |
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Amazon's Price: $ 13.94
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Fyn on re-solutions. As in re-solve. I always thought that if something was solved, that it was concluded, finished, done. If it isn't, then it is a work in progress. Thus, anything started, but not yet concluded, is a continuation with allowances for reassessing. Reassessments. Modification. Old habits are hard to break and much more daunting than to perhaps modify a behavior. And, modification is not restricted to the first day of a new year. If something needs or wants doing, then it needs that attention in whatever now is going on.
Oh wait. They are called New Year's Resolutions. (resolve, which is to state an act) Why do we not choose our birthdays for this act? Are we not a year older and thus, presumably, wiser? Turning fifty-five this year was a real eye-opener for me. I remember thinking, as a child, that fifty-five was impossibly OLD. My body tells me it is all down hill from here on. My mind says I feel like a kid. The face in the mirror reminds me more and more of my mother as I last remember her. My heart insists I've way more to do yet than can be crammed into the twenty or thirty years (hopefully) that I have left. My birthday, then, was when I went through the 'I need to do this' and the 'I ought to do thats.' Yet New Year's Day is the world-wide equalizer, the common denominator for mankind to make changes.
For me it is like opening that last present tucked far back under the tree, forgotten, its bow askew, until the tree comes down and it is discovered. No tag, free to be opened by the finder. Peeling back the wrapping is discovery of something new. New possibilities, new hopes, new dreams. Upon opening, that ethereal wisp flashes forth, brightening one's surroundings with innumerable ‘what ifs’ to be played with and enjoyed as it energizes the soul and fortifies the heart. That wisp opens a door into all our tomorrows while keeping the windows cracked into yesterday.
Although the new decade technically doesn't begin until 2011, the world is busy counting and totaling up the best, the worst, the most comical and the most memorable of the past decade. For me those moments include 9-11, five grandkids, a marriage, a 6000 mile road trip and for me, most importantly, a rediscovery of who I am which opened the door to 'who I can be.'
Thus I am not resolved, but rather, I am exploring, evaluating and evolving. Regardless of choices I may make, I will be different on New Year's Day 2011 than I am today. How fundamental those changes occurring during the next year are, remains to be seen.
Explorations of this sort give rise to possibilities and options in writing as well. Where are you now as compared to ten years ago or last year? Are you a better writer? More observant? Writing more often? Published? Particularly pleased with some pieces you've written regardless if they ever earn you a dime or a Pulitzer?
And why or why not?
Thinking over, flashing backwards over the past year, what pops into mind? Any 'great' moments? Any 'small, but memorable' ones? Any life altering ones? Did you pause and appreciate those daffodils blooming under someone's hedge or hold an infant? Have you managed to survive and still grow regardless of recent economic disasters? Have you giggled uncontrollably with your child? Have you loved and been loved? Did you find your light when all seemed impossibly dark? Have you reassessed what truly is important in your life and did it surprise you?
Happy New Year to all. I wish you a year of possibilities with many moments to treasure. I wish you a year filled with clarity. I wish you the ability to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks. I wish you excellent friendships. May you grow in new ways, evolve in new directions, and rise to new levels. May you be more at its end than you are now. May you know that there is always joy to be found, even when you must look very hard to find it. May you have nights of untroubled sleep and a plethora of dreams to work for by day. Every day I wish you a moment of childlike glee and someone to hug for no special reason at all, but 'just because.'
May you surprise someone with an unexpected kindness.
And mostly, I wish you a year of sight. Observe. Take in. Too often we go through our days and weeks like individual automatons so focused on a particular mission that the world around us dissolves into a muddy blur void of distinction, character, beauty or life.
Take the ten seconds or five minutes to appreciate and share that spectacular sunrise because you are here to see it! Notice and value the glory in a perfect snowflake before grumbling about all the shoveling. See a tired face brighten when you let the person with three things cut in front of you and your full cart in line at the grocery store. Find shapes in the clouds. Sit beside a running brook with your eyes closed and listen to the water's music. Don't miss that hawk soaring, playing with the wind as you sit stuck in traffic, but rather, for a brief moment, tag along and soar with him. Listen to someone's 'whys' for they just might be wise. See. Internalize. Gain Heightened Thought.
Happy 2010.
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Some New Year specific picks:
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| |  | Predawn Trail (E)
In Japan, it's the custom to see the dawn on New Years. This was my first, long ago.
#915680 by Kotaro  |
Some others simply because I liked them!
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#1627060 by Not Available. |
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| ASIN: B01CJ2TNQI |
Product Type: Kindle Store
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Amazon's Price: $ 5.99
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| Think of the moments that you experienced in the past year...the treasured, the ones that when seen in mind's eye give pause, a fleeting smile, a warm glow. Create a static item (poetry or short story) and email me the bitem link by Jan 15th. Best ones featured in next newsletter and the best one (or ones, depending) will get a merit badge! |
| ASIN: B083RZ37SZ |
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For Authors: December 30, 2009 Issue [#3474]
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