Make 2012 the Best it Can Be

2012 is the year of the dragon. How can it NOT rock?

January is a month of infinite possibilities. A whole new year stretches out before us, and we make promises to ourselves about how we’re going to make it the best it can be.

What happens, of course, is the same every year. We do or don’t keep our resolutions based on our personality type, or on the feasibility or necessity of those goals. Regardless of our personal efforts, life spins on, ever-changing and some of it will be good, some bad. The world will lose good people. More will arise when they’re needed. Villains will show their stripes, and someone, somewhere, will be at war. People will get hurt and others will have moments that seem to outshine the sun. And pretty much all of this will happen no matter what any one of us tries to do.

That doesn’t mean we can’t, or shouldn’t, do our best to make it a year with more good than bad—in our home, our work, our neighborhood, our nation or our world. The little things add up and our efforts can and do make a difference in the lives of ourselves, and others. So I’m not proposing that we just sit back and do nothing in 2012, but rather than make sweeping resolutions I may not be able to keep, I have a few little goals I bring out every year—then do my best to achieve as many of them as possible, as often as possible.

1)      Try new things. New physical activities, new styles of food, new music, new places to see, new authors to read, new types of stories to write. Get out of that rut and enjoy all of what the world has to offer.

2)      Make new friends and reconnect with old ones who have fallen by the wayside. Let the people you care about know it, often and well. This is my very favorite thing about social networking, btw. It lets me stay connected so easily with friends and relations all over the world.

3)      Take care of yourself. Rather than swear to exercise this long, this many days, look at the big picture and just remind yourself that your health, mental and physical, is important to the people who love you. Then do whatever you need to do to get there and stay there.

4)      Cut yourself some slack. Focus on the important stuff, and don’t let the little, day-to-day annoyances overshadow the beauty all around you. Bad things, big and small, will happen in our lives. Don’t let those blind us to the good stuff because they seem overwhelming.

5)      Do good things. As small as holding a door for the grumpy person behind you. As big as massive charitable projects. Whatever opportunity you have to make someone else smile, take it.  You’ll be the one who benefits most.

So there you have it. Cindy’s five goals to a better world. Does this mean you won’t see me on-line whining about deadlines or offspring? Not a chance. I’m as human as the rest of you, and I know without a doubt that some days, I won’t come close to a single one of these goals. I’ll be curled in a corner with a bag of Dove squares whinging about my life. But that’s kind of the point. None of us is perfect. (Wouldn’t it be scary if we were?) But little by little, day by day, we can all muddle through together, and come out happier for it.

Everyone have a fantastic 2012!

Okay, now here’s a bit of happy 2012 to me: Wrong Side of Town, my contemporary romance from Resplendence Publishing, is now in paperback. Come meet Zach, Laney, and the whole town of Hawthorne, Texas, available at Amazon.com.

Comment below to win a free copy of Wrong Side of Town. Entrants in the US or Canada will get to choose between a digital copy and a paperback, while those outside those countries will have their chose of digital download formats.