What Are You Hoping for This New Year?

Make New Year’s goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you’re interested in fully living life in the year to come.  ~ Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go.

Sometimes I find it hard to be interested in fully living. Sometimes I am dead-dog-tired of the life struggle and would like to hide from living beneath a quilt, while I enter a fake world of comedy movies or television shows that I’ve seen a thousand times. Sometimes I do this.

But I have learned that since I am here on earth, the wisest, most helpful path is to pursue living fully, and that hopes and dreams head me in the right direction. You know the snarky saying, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Well, honey, don’t ever hesitate to have intentions, because it all starts there.

As a writer and scribbler and lover of words, I find my direction by those words. Words are containers for power. I did not make that up. But I’m certain someone else really wise said it, and we all need as much power for living as we can get. Remember that moment in the movie, The Miracle Worker, when the blind child Helen Keller begins to know the names of things–what the words spelled in her hand meant? Those words brought her life.

I’ve decided my guiding ‘word’ of the 2024 is ‘Choose Life’. I’ll think those words when I have decisions to make, when I’m disappointed, or confused, when I can’t figure out the next step. Those words will keep me living fully.

I’m adding that on my list of habits to develop for the new year: more passing along what I enjoy. On the habits list is cultivate my writing life. For that I have begun reading Julia Cameron’s book, The Right to Write. And I have begun writing a new novella–simply putting that into words provides a sense of commitment, even a slice of joy.

Please share your hope or dream or word for the year.

Grace and peace,

---