Happy New Year!

The advent of a new year is a wonderful feeling; a new beginning, new prospects, new year’s resolutions. The end of a year and start of a new one gives you a clean script to write upon. I was thinking about all the resolutions made: weight to be lost, gyms to be attended faithfully, life work balance to be sorted, fruits and vegetables intake to be doubled, money to be saved, the moment to be embraced. The list goes on and on, full of many noble, worthwhile ways to make people and lives better. Any cause for reflection and call to betterment is a good thing, but I started to wonder if perhaps this year I wanted to look at a bigger cause than amends for my overindulgence of shortbread. I asked myself what could I benefit from, what could my family use more of, what could the world use more of and I came up with compassion. It is so easy to judge, to overreact, but with a conscious effort to slow down and try and see someone else’s point of view we might react with kindness. I think compassion is like many things in life, if we practice it on ourselves first, it becomes easier to practice in everyday life. If we could learn to expect a little less from ourselves and give ourselves room for less than perfection, then perhaps we can in turn offer that to others. If we are kind to ourselves, accept our own shortcomings and mistakes then maybe we can be more forgiving of others. If you are unkind to yourself you are more apt to accept unkindness from others. If we can never give ourselves a break, how can we give others the benefit of the doubt? We are not in this alone, none of us is perfect. If we can be patient and kind and forgiving to ourselves then perhaps when we see others fumble we may actually see an opportunity for connection not judgement. 2018 could be a better year for everyone.