Happy New Year to my faithful blog viewers and supporters. I hope your New Year will be full of love, cheerfulness, and eternal faith and hope. Whatever happened in 2012, January 1 2013 is a new benchmark, leaving all of the past behind. As we say in economics, stuff we have done before, costs we have incurred, financial or otherwise, are fixed costs. We can't do anything about them. Sure, we may need to mend some fences and pay some debts, to fix up and patch up our errors here and there, to make amends on occasion. But we should not base today's decisions and choices on fixed costs. What matters now is what we can do about this moment, this hour, this day, this week, this month, this year. Maybe we're sick of New Year's resolutions that are rarely kept, but surely we can fix some little things here and there, show more love and kindness, stop cussing, listen more carefully, do less complaining and worrying, and be thankful for the blessings we have and for the joy of each new day. Maybe just a few little things. Then, what to do you know, little things become contagious. A smile for a tired clerk at the grocery store may be what he or she needs to finish the shift on aching legs. Patience for an old, slow person to cross the street with a walker or a cane, slowly, slowly, may remind us of our own blessing of mobility. Saying please, thank you, you're welcome, and how can I help you, might become more frequently spoken from our lips. And no matter how much or how little religion means to us, thoughts of thankfulness and gratitude will make us better persons.
May your New Year be full of sunny days, and may you see the sun shine through and look for the golden glow of hope even on the cloudiest, gloomiest days, when things seem so disouraging and hope seems so very far away, abandoning us to our fears and doubts. As Uriah Heep says, "Something will turn up." May it be so in your days ahead in 2013.
