I'm not normally a "resolution" kind of person. Generally, when I decide to do something, I do it (or I try, anyway), regardless of the calendar. January 1st isn't any more special to me than any other day, really.

Anyway, this year I do have a resolution, but I've already started it. On Boxing Day (that's the day after Christmas for those of you who are not in a Commonwealth nation), we observed our usual "day trip" tradition and we ended up at Wilson's Promontory and we just had the best time of it (there are a couple of new photos already in the photo gallery, but I haven't documented them, and I still have more to add). I was so very happy on that day, just really, genuinely happy. It was a perfect day out, and it was also a spiritual experience in ways that I can't really explain without sounding like a lunatic (which I may already do, but I'll take that risk).

Now I've been working on healing and attitude and a lot of spiritually directed things for a long, long time now, and to put it into a nutshell, I realised that there's no real reason why I can't and shouldn't be happy every day. So that's my resolution. From now on, I'm going to be happy, every day, for the rest of my life.

Now... I am not insane. I am more than aware that life is full of all kinds of twists and turns and unforseen tragedy and so forth. I don't expect to be happy every moment of every day. I think that's probably impossible. But I do definitely believe that it's possible to rise above stress, pain, grief, sorrow, fear, and other stuff that gets in the way of being happy. I know from long experience that if I can just manage to climb on top of that stuff, I can touch the joy, and experience it. And I know that I can know joy even when I'm sad or tired or irritable, because I've done it. The trick is just going to be to do it all the time, or at least most of the time.

There you go, my resolution. And isn't it just a doozy...