A New Year Dawns

It’s the first day of the year – 2015.
I’m sitting here at the keyboard wondering what New Year’s Resolution I should be making: a ridiculous concept really. I suppose that the first day of the year is the appropriate time to ‘start anew’, to make a big decision to be a better person, but it’s rubbish really.
 
Making new year’s resolutions are usually just a passing conversation starter, a pile of wishful thinking or simply another way necessitating a ‘beating yourself up’ situation later  -  when you have not kept up with the promises you made to yourself.
So, here I am (as I said) sitting at the keyboard and wondering about the new year that has just begun.

I’ve just dispensed with any promises to myself – yes, even the ones that I am keeping secret, about trying to smile more and trying to listen more to what others have to say.

I’m pondering the possibilities presented by 2015 and being grateful that I am still here. Many people I know (knew) are no longer here; I am fortunate to be still living here on our lovely planet Earth.
Perhaps that’s reason enough for a new year’s promise (?): Be grateful.

Come to think of it, promising myself to smile more often is perhaps not a stupid plan. Smiles cost nothing and are easy to produce. I read where even a

fake smile will do wonders for your emotional well-being. So, perhaps I will try to smile more often. Helps you while you are helping others…well, sort of.

AND: 'Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles.’,
so said George Eliot.
 
My other original (and once secret) suggested ‘resolution’ concerned listening more intently to what others have to say. That’s probably another helpful habit to adopt. Only recently I read that, when in conversation, (instead of what we usually do, that is, wait for a pause in the other person’s speaking to quickly insert our own contribution) it is better to look at our conversing acquaintance and (at the pause) simply ask ‘what happened next?’, or a similar appropriate query, to give him/her a chance to talk some more. They will appreciate it and you just might learn something – as well as how to be considerate.

So, here I am, promising NOT to make any New Year’s promises and I have already formulated two.
Not bad; first promise (to not make any promises) broken and it’s not even lunch time, January 1.  

It’s a very warm day today. Not too hot, though a little humid. The sun s shining and there’s a slight promise of rain. I can almost hear the plants in my garden growing.
That’s something to be grateful for.

I’m happy and well.
My immediate family members are all happy and well.
That’s a heap of facts to be grateful for.

 

I have a lovely home – and it’s paid for; big reason to be happy – and grateful.

If the weather becomes too hot, here in the sub-tropics, there is a pool in the back yard to slip into and cool off.

I have a pile of library books yet to read.

I have emails to read and answer.

What a huge amount of reasons I have to be grateful.

 

So, my biggest new year’s promise or ‘resolution’, (apart from not making any!) is to be grateful – every day.

Every day in 2015 -  and every year thereafter that I am alive.

Phew! A big ask!