Happy New Year 2020

And so another year draws to a close and a new year begins. With the passage of time, I have found that I look forward to every year bathed in the hope for a better future for myself—a chance to put my best foot forward and to know that it will be enough, that I will be enough. So I spend a lot of time in the second half of December in contemplation and in writing my goals. These are not esoteric, high-falutin', aspirational goals, but rather practical, measurable goals that will add up to a year of satisfaction and success and peace.

Clearly, I don't always achieve all that I set out to do. So I tinker with them as the year goes on, frequently reminding myself of my hopes at the beginning of the year and tempering them with reality. Yet, I believe in entering the new year with intentionality, not just allowing myself to be swept along with the tide. Quite a few people find goals oppressive. To me, goals are comforting. I have done my thinking and now I have concrete steps set out to achieve what I hope to achieve.

In addition to goals, I choose a word or two that will help me shape the year. Given all the heartbreak and turmoil of last year, my words for this year are: Grace & Hope. And my highest aim for this year is to Be Like A Tree, according to Maria Popova, one of the keenest modern-day intellectual: "May we face the coming year with the steady serenity of a tree—that supreme lover of light, always reaching both higher and deeper, rooted in a network of kinship and ringed by a more patient view of time."

Whatever may be your way of thinking of the new year, my wish for you, dear readers, is that it brings you happiness, because after all, what can be a better measure of success than happiness?