What's special about a New Year

Image courtesy of [Stuart Miles/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Why is the first day of the New Year so special?  It's not just the good times and watching the ball drop in Times Square even when you're thousands of miles away in a different time zone, though when you're young, good times may be all that you care about.  But, as you get older, you want more from the event than just the ephemeral experience of partying.  It is because the new year promises a new beginning and we all want another chance, if not for 'do-overs', at least for 'do-betters'.

And new beginnings require changes and big efforts require big changes. If you're already on an fitness program, it is not difficult to add another 15 minutes or do another routine, but if your exercising consists only of clicking your TV remote from the couch, starting to exercise requires you to change.  Change is difficult for many of us who've been conditioned to aim for comfort and predictability and avoid any chance for failure.  But change is life and as we're all changing in small ways even if we don't know it, we might as well sign up for the big changes that we can consciously make to get us to where we want to be and who we want to be.

Considering a change in 2014?  Check out this post from James Altucher.  Wild and crazy, but totally on the mark in its message.  Vive la change!

Post Thanksgiving

Thankful for the beauty of fall

(Excuse the small pun!)

It's still Thanksgiving weekend and even with the possible food coma, Black Friday shopping and overload of family and friends, we may still have a bit of the actual 'giving thanks' feeling lingering in us.  A glow of gratitude. A counting of blessings resulting in warm fuzzies.  After all gratitude seems to be the easiest, cheapest and safest drug to help fight stress, depression, anxiety, the general blahs.  So we can take a couple of minutes and extend the good vibes by giving thanks (skipping the attendant gluttony) for a few 'extensions' to the standard lists.

1. Family.  For sure we're thankful for our immediate family and sometimes our extended family (especially when they're at the table).  How about the many generations that went before us to make us who we are?  We may have names and occasionally faces for a generation or two (or, if lucky, three) before us, but just thinking of our ancestors and the place(s) they came from and imagining their lives gives us a much better appreciation for our own lives and times (where we can obsess about the selection of heritage vs. 'all natural' turkeys).
2. Health.  We tend to give thanks for our own and our family's good health if one of us recovered from something nasty, but we forget we stay healthy with exercise and diet. Give thanks to the fact that you can bike to work, or live close to a wilderness area with great trails, or your daily life is so full of activity that you don't need to 'work out'.  And many of us should thank our good fortunes for the plentiful access to healthy tasty foods (yay for farmers markets!).
3. Work.  While being routinely thankful for having jobs and incomes (sadly 'at least I should be thankful I have a job' is all too common), we could extend our gratitude to our coworkers who enrich our work lives, the mentors who help us out, the innovation around us (if we're lucky) and the sheer satisfaction of accomplishment which work of any kind brings to us.
4. Challenge.  We don't like it when the going gets rough.  We get hurt or disappointed by people.  We're frustrated when things don't work they way we want them to.  We're stressed when projects sputter at work or kids act out at home.  But, if you stop to think about it, you'll recognize that you grew and learned something from every one of these 'I wish it didn't happen' events.  The 'difficult people' and 'rough patches' that make you stronger and add texture to the tapestry of your life are worth your thanks.
5. Fulfillment.  The feeling that you've been of help to someone is right up there with gratitude as a happy drug, being 'fulfilled' is the best possible state.  So make it a double-shot, give thanks for all the opportunities you've had to be compassionate and of service to others. 
6. Fun.  If you're reading this post, you're one of the fortunate ones with access to the Internet and discretionary time (both of which are in themselves worthy of serious gratitude) and you probably get to do something fun maybe even on a daily basis.  It doesn't matter what it is - video games, cartoons, music, foodie fests, football, books, sitcoms, art, scrabble - you should give heartfelt thanks you're so lucky to be able to indulge in something just because it pleases you.
7. Beauty.  It is all around us, in the earth, the sky and stars, the creatures that share our planet, in the people of the world from babies to babushkas, in the ideas and artifacts we humans conjure.  It gives us joy, sometimes even when we're not aware of it and deserves gratitude for its presence.

That's it, a few extras for consideration in giving thanks - I don't feel compelled to make it a list of 10 (another thing to be thankful for).  What's on your thanksgiving list?

Nurture the nature

The prevailing conventional wisdom for doing pretty much anything, from losing weight to packing lunch or changing jobs, is:

1. There should be an article, or more likely a blog post, posted somewhere, anywhere.  Literally anywhere in the world, Singapore Times, Belize Bulletin, Capetown Courier.  Whatever.  Preferably shared on Facebook by your cohorts (not your parents' generation!).
2. It is neatly encapsulated into a checklist.  Something you can put (better yet download) into your to-do list.  There's an app for that?  Even better.  (There isn't?  Then build one!)
3. There's a study!  Some university doctoral candidates researched this very topic and published it in some journal.  Never mind that the topic could be as common-sensical as lack of sleep makes people tired and cranky (something you already know from past, painful experience), but hey, the study makes it worthy.  (Hope you're the type to check out the details, because studies can be, hmmm, spurious sometimes.)

Anyway, here's the thing to do (and the subject of this post): Talk to your kids about your family, give them the 'backstory'.

For generations this was something that was pretty much taken for granted.  Kids spent so much time around their parents, as well as grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins (essentially the tribe), that they heard these stories all the time (and probably rolled their eyes when hearing them as teenagers).  Genes were not enough to make a 'family' - being together and knowing about each other were needed.  You heard about grandpa running a grocery store not because your parents wanted to make sure you'd grow up believing you could be a successful tech entrepreneur, but because that was just part of your history.  And knowing the good as well as the bad was a given, because it showed that (a) things work out (b) families stick together through thick and thin and (c) there's probably a moral in there somewhere that nana just couldn't pass up in each telling.

We live differently now.  Our families are not close and in our hyper-competitive, uber-structured, always-on lives we need a strong reason (and peer pressure!) to take the time to tell stories.

• Want the article?  Here you go.   
• Want the checklist? Voila! Here's another article which lists the twenty questions your children should be able to answer.
• Want the study?  Mentioned in the articles above.

All these exhort you to talk to the kids and build a family narrative.  This is not just so you give your kid an edge in growing up to be a billionaire entrepreneur, an Olympic athlete or an arena artist.  It is so they can grow up stronger, more resilient, and happier in whatever path their lives take them.  It's not enough to pass on the DNA, but to nurture their nature.  Kids need to hear about the people around them, just ordinary folks (not celebrities), who've managed to live decent lives. This helps kids build confidence in their abilities to manage their own lives.  (I've seen it work for my friends' adopted kids too - maybe there's a study somewhere.)

But please, don't stick to those twenty questions - they may not be relevant, and worse, may just be boring. Twenty fleshed-out stories (like how your grandma's grandma drew water daily from the well when she was 90 years old or how your uncle traveled to Africa in the Peace Corps and never came back), may be more memorable.  Stories need to be told over dinner, on road-trips, around campfires, curled up on a couch on a rainy day (hint, hint, make the time to talk to your kids!), but e-books and videos are good backups (note: backups) too.  

I enjoy channeling my strong, independent great-grandma who survived being gored by a cow in her late eighties ("it was only a cow!") - do you have a story that inspires you?