Happy New Year

Today is the dawn of a whole new year. May this be the year we achieve herd immunity through vaccination and can heave a sigh of relief and say the pandemic is at an end. Every year I write these new year's posts, I lay out lofty goals and exhortations. This year, my goals are simple and yet more profound: focus on health and achieve a measure of peace and joy. To that end, I have begun going for daily walks and investing in nutrition through more fruits and vegetables and less processed foods. I have begun a meditation practice. And I have also signed up for a program that requires you to work with a psychologist exploring indentity: Who Am I? I have been writing daily notebook pages by hand and journaling daily on LiveJournal for years. What I write in the journal and the notebook differ; one is more structured, the other, more freewheeling. This work with the psychologist is a more in-depth look into what makes me tick and how can I tick differently in some areas. The past many years have been one of passivity for me, where things happened to me and I drowned in them. I hope this year, I will be an instrument of change. I can't wait for the days to unfold and see what I bring to the table.

"Be Like a Tree: 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." —Maria Popova