Good Wishes for the New Year

As the calendar turns over to a new year, it gives me time to pause and reflect on what I would like this fresh, new time to look and feel like. The slate is clean, the opportunities vast. What will we do with them? In a time when news comes to us instantly and constantly, there seems to be a growing trend toward the negative. Such heightened negativity poured into our minds and hearts can only lead to increased stress, anxiety, divisiveness and a focus on lack and our differences. More than ever, I feel the need to focus my energies on joy, abundance, love, hope and kindness. I choose to see the abundance of blessing, rather than becoming drawn into the depths of fear and unhappiness. If each of us were to devote our hours to kind words, happy thoughts, loving gestures and respectful responses, I believe the world would be a more peaceful place and the turmoil and injustices that plague our society and world might be resolved with more creative, communal solutions. Through our differences of opinion and thought, consensus can be reached. However, the more we focus on our differences, the larger the chasm becomes. The less we see hope, the more we create despair. The more we focus on hatred and violence, the less energy we dedicate to lifting each other up. We live in a time of uncertainty, but those times have always been and likely always will be. What we, as individuals, do with today will have a ripple effect on the shaping of our collective tomorrows. May this new year be one of hope and kindness, where extraordinary joy comes from our ordinary moments and our affirmation of each other becomes the norm.