It is the beginning of the new year and is seems a time for New Years Resolutions to be made.  I decided that the most important thing is that I live my mantras as on the Home Page of my blog:

• BE PEACEFUL
• BE MINDFUL
• POSITIVE IMPRESSIONS
• PEACEFUL
• NOT TO COMPLICATED
• MOMENTS OF JOY

and I think I have to reinforce to myself that I think the most important and the one that covers everything is:

I WILL BE A BETTER MAN

The better man thing is taking a whole lot longer and more effort than I had planned.  There has unfortunately been no flash of enlightenment and the better man imerging from the transforming cocoon (preferably overnight) has not happened.

It has more been like a trudge through ankle to knee deep shit, with the occasional dry spot where you get to rinse out your socks and wash down your boots before you continue the slog.  Not how I had planned it, but probably what I had expected.

A lot of the time I have been on AUTOPILOT and the BLACK DOG has come to visit more times than I would have liked.

But this is a NEW YEAR.

I know New Years resolutions are mostly destined to fail (from my extensive Google research only 46% last longer that 6 months!).  So is it really worth making them?  Well I am choosing to look at it this way – ALMOST HALF SUCCEED!

I think I am writing more than necessary at the moment because that way I can continue to avoid actually writing down my resolutions (which unfortunately I have written down before and have ended up in the 54% who don’t make it!), so here they are:

• I WILL STOP SMOKING
• I WILL GET TO 78 kgs 
• I WILL MEDITATE DAILY

So there they are.  New Years are not always new beginnings, but why not draw a line somewhere that is easy to remember where the line is and have a go.  I am hoping to be in the minority this year and succeed!