HappyLutions to You!

So, the ladies in my arthritis water class are generally supportive about almost everything, but they completely mocked me when I told them my New Year's resolutions would be only things that make me happy.  

Right away, Janice pointed out, "Good luck with that on April 15."  It appears she believes there's nothing happy about coughing up your taxes and that, unlike Martha, I couldn't be happy in a federal prison.  Quite possibly she's right about that, too. Bunk beds and orange clothes, yuck. 

But, actually, I think I just expressed my Happy Resolutions plan poorly.  I don't mean I plan to only do happy things -- somebody has to clean up the cat barf, after all and sooner or later it will be my turn. 

I mean that, here today, as 2011 fades, I am only going to make resolutions to do things that raise my spirits, encourage my better nature and, thereby, make me happy.

Here's the deal.  I have two or three really big, bright, wonderful goals for this year.  And, from many decades of experience, I've deduced that the absolutely worst place to store goals you care about is anywhere close to a New Year's resolution. It's way too dark and cold in there, and the moaning of the broken and lost is simply too dispiriting. Also the Guilt and Blame Levels (GBLs) are way too high for the support of optimism.  Or maybe even life itself.

Here's what I meant by happy resolutions.  First of all, I'm only making five.  Not ten. Why does it always have to be ten?  I want to abandon five absolutely jewel-like Happylutions with tender regret and whisper, "Sorry. You guys are alternates.  Maybe next year.  Or maybe if one of the ones I pick gets voted off the island.... We'll see."  

(FYI:  Moving into SweetieFry http://www.facebook.com/SweetieFry

didn't make the top five.  Je regrette.)  

The key distinction is that these are things I rejoice in gravitating towards.  If I happen to forget all five for a week, I don't want to say, "Oh crap. I am a toadlike failure, as was clearly inevitable."  I want to murmur, "Oh, wow.  I've got a ton of happy to catch up on."  

So, only good, only nurturing, only generous and kind, feel-good mini-parties on my resolutions list this year.  

These are them:  ("Screw good grammar" isn't on the list either, but what the heck.)  

#1.  Breathe like it's a spa treatment.  

#2.  Be alert for improvement.  When improvement is identified, celebrate.

#3.  Pay attention: Notice. Listen. Smell. Touch. Taste. Savor. Love. Be. Repeat.

#4.  Be kind to somebody.  Anybody.  Start with you and work outward.

#5.  Be grateful for something.  Anything. Everything. Maybe even taxes.

#6.  (Cut yourself a break. Give yourself a bonus.)  Invoke festivity.

That's them.  Aren't they pretty?  Sweeter than a SweetyFry. 

To you, I say, Happy New Year.  With all the incandescence of #5, I say that I am grateful for all the magical goodness that has come to me this year, all the kindness, all the healing, all the promise, all the generosity, all the love. (You know who you are.  If you got this, you know.) 

And, with all the kindness I can muster from #4, I invite you to make your own Happylutions.

XOXOXOAnnie