Happy New Year!

Drop the last year into the silent limbo
of the past.  Let it go, for it was imperfect,
and thank God that it can go.

Brooks Atkinson

   

The conventional Happy New Year approach is to think of the New Year as something
that happens outside of our selves.  It is a good luck wish that the New Year, in some
magical way, will bring us our heart’s desire.  We look to the New Year to make us happy.
When we expect happiness to come to us from the outside, we are usually disappointed.
Happiness is not guaranteed by sunny weather, a raise in pay, a new car, a beautiful home
or anything else of a material nature.  External things are often possessed by very unhappy
people.  Happiness does not come out of a New Year, it comes out of men and women.  Life
does not change when we hang a new calendar on the wall or when the clock strikes midnight
and a New Year begins.  The only way life will change for us is when we change ourselves.

Wilferd A. Peterson

 

Every new year people make resolutions to change aspects of themselves
they believe are negative.  A majority of people revert back to how
they were before and feel like failures.  This year I challenge you
to a new resolution.  I challenge you to just be yourself.

Aisha Elderwyn

   

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The Old Year has gone.  Let the dead past bury its own dead. 
The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time.   All hail
the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!

Edward Payson Powell
  

Every person should be born again on the first day of January.  Start with
a fresh page.  Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let
down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every
person gird him or herself once more, with face to the front, and take
no interest in the things that were and are past.

Henry Ward Beecher

  

New Year's Eve is like every other night; there is no pause
in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of
silence among created things that the passage of another
twelve months may be noted; and yet no person has quite
the same thoughts this evening as those that come with the
coming of darkness on other nights.

Hamilton Wright Mabie

  

Today, dear friends, we stand upon the verge of the unknown.  There
lies before us the new year and we are going forth to possess it.  Who
can tell what we shall find?  What new experiences, what changes shall
come, what new needs shall arise?. . . . The land is a land of hills and valleys.
It is not all smooth nor all downhill.  If life were all one dead level, the dull
sameness would oppress us; we want the hills and valleys. . .  We cannot
tell what loss and sorrow and trial are doing.  Trust only.  The Father
comes near to take our hand and lead us on our way today.
It shall be a good, blessed new year!

Lettie B. Cowman

   

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room,
drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.
Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through
the rooms of our lives. . . not looking for flaws, but for potential.

Ellen Goodman

   

It depends on us. . . Another year lies before us like an unwritten page,
an unspent coin, an unwalked road.  How the pages will read,
what treasures will be gained in exchange for time,
or what we find along the way, will largely depend on us.

Esther Baldwin York

   

And I said to the man who
stood at the gate of the year:
"Give me a light that I may
tread safely into the
unknown."  And he replied:
"Go out into the darkness
and put your hand into
the hand of God.  That
shall be to you better
than light, and safer
than a known way."

Minnie Louise Haskins

  

   

Then sing, young hearts that are full of cheer,
With never a thought of sorrow;
The old goes out, but the glad young year
Comes merrily in tomorrow.

Emily Miller

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Alfred Tennyson

   

A new year can begin only because the old year ends.

Madeleine L'Engle

   

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Each New Year, we have before us a brand new book containing
365 blank pages.  Let us fill them with all the forgotten things from
last year—the words we forgot to say, the love we forgot
to show, and the charity we forgot to offer.

Peggy Toney Horton
  

We will open the book.  Its pages are blank.  We are going
to put words on them ourselves.  The book is called
Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

Edith Lovejoy Pierce

  

Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.

Brad Paisley

   

Make New Year's goals.  Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year.  This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you're interested in fully living life in the year to come.

Goals give us direction.  They put a powerful force into play on a universal, conscious, and subconscious level.  Goals give our life direction.

What would you like to have happen in your life this year?  What would you like to do, to accomplish?  What good would you like to attract into your life?  What particular areas of growth would you like to have happen to you? What blocks, or character defects, would you like to have removed?

What would you like to attain?  Little things and big things?  Where would you like to go?  What would you like to have happen in friendship and love?  What would you like to have happen in your family life?

What problems would you like to see solved?  What decisions would you like to make?  What would you like to happen in your career?

Write it down.  Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it all down--as an affirmation of you, your life, and your ability to choose.  Then let it go.

The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written.  We can help write that story by setting goals.

Melody Beattie
The Language of Letting Go

    

  
For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.

T.S. Eliot
Four Quartets
  

Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering "it will be happier". . . .

Alfred Tennyson

  

A flower unblown; a book unread;
A tree with fruit unharvested;
A path untrod; a house whose rooms
Lack yet the heart's divine perfumes;
A landscape whose wide border lies
In silent shade beneath the skies;
A wondrous fountain yet unsealed;
A casket with its gifts concealed--
This is the Year that for you waits
Beyond tomorrow's mystic gates.

Horatio Nelson Powers

  
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year.  It is
that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new
backbone, new ears, and new eyes.  Unless a particular person made
New Year resolutions, he or she would make no resolutions.  Unless one
starts afresh about things, that person will certainly do nothing effective.

G.K. Chesterton
  

What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal
on what you bring to the new year.

Vern McLellan

  

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Another fresh new year is here . . .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!

This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!

I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!

William Arthur Ward
   

New Year's Requirements
W.R. Hunt

The sun is just rising on the morning of another day, one of the
first of a new year.  What can I wish that this day, this year, may
bring to me?  Nothing that shall make the world of others poorer,
nothing at the expense of others; but just those things which in
their coming do not stop with me, but touch me rather,
as they pass and gather strength:

A few friends who understand me, and yet remain my friends.

A work to do which has real value without which the world
would feel the poorer.

A return for such work small enough not to tax unduly anyone
who pays.

A mind unafraid to travel, even though the trail be not blazed.

An understanding heart.

A sight of the eternal hills and unresting sea, and of something
beautiful the hand of humans has made.

A sense of humor and the power to laugh.

A few moments of quiet, silent meditation.  The sense of the
presence of God.

. . . and the patience to wait for the coming of these things,
with the wisdom to know them when they come.

    

  

quotations - contents - welcome page - obstacles
the people behind the words - our current e-zine - articles and excerpts
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Do not begin the new year by recounting to yourself or others all
your losses and sorrows.  Let the past go.  Should some good friend
present you with material for a lovely garment, would you insult her
by throwing it aside and describing the beautiful garments you had
worn out in past times?  The new year has given you the fabric for a
fresh start in life, why dwell upon the events which have gone,
the joys, blessings and advantages of the past! . . . . Think of yourself
as on the threshold of unparalleled success.  A whole, clear, glorious
year lies before you!  In a year you can regain
health, fortune, restfulness, happiness!

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Heart of the New Thought
   

         
    

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(Found online images come from a variety of unattributed
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Yes, life can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's actually rather dependable and reliable.  Some principles apply to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning.  I use it a lot when I teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.  What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or generous, compassionate or arrogant?  In this book, I've done my best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life, writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.  Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too!
Universal Principles of Living Life Fully.  Awareness of these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration out of the lives we lead.