A New Year always comes up with a new feeling because nobody else has been there before. It is difficult to understand how a new set of dates affects our individual beings but that is just it – a new set of dates. The New Year is no different from the last. The sun will rise in the east and set in the west but the fact that the future is now today makes all the difference. It gives us the opportunity to be new, to live differently and to put the past where it belongs. 2010 provides a fresh slate. For all you sinners, one to avoid sin, to all those in loss of hope, a new lease of hope that comes with a new year. 2010 comes with new possibilities. Everyone will arbitrarily grow older and perhaps wiser. So this is the time to look upon the mistakes you made in the past year in your personal and professional life and learn crucial lessons from them. All kinds of people will be looking towards making New Year resolutions. As much as the New Year presents new possibilities, there is no guarantee that New Year resolutions will be the magic wand that will solve all our problems. As much as we face a new set of dates, most of our problems will not just go away especially if we maintain our old attitudes. New Year resolutions are no good especially if they are not part of a long term set of goals, values and specific and measurable actions to meet those goals and which satisfy those values. New Year resolutions do not have a life of their own so if you intend to make 2010 by writing down three goals which you intend to achieve without putting them in the framework of your life goals and desires, you had better take a walk. One year ago, I wrote in this same column that if you did not reach your New Year resolutions in 2008, do not fuss so much on what will become of 2009 and the much tougher ones you have set for it. Instead, take the opportunity to relax and re-examine your general short, medium and long term goals of your life and make it a point to align these goals with your everyday life. If in your hearts of hearts, you love and are passionate about your life goals and how you would like them to split up in the short, medium and long term, your body, mind and soul will automatically tune into success mode. Today, as you grapple with a young 2010, I beseech you to follow this advice if you are the type who takes a new year like a new dress, wear it down quickly and before long throw it away, forgetting it into history. Be New! The art of renewing and re-examining your annual goals should yield a good set of new year resolutions that are easy to follow, clear to measure and practical enough to live with without drastically changing you lifestyle. Otherwise, I wish you a successful 2010! kelviod@yahoo.com
