RESOLUTIONS

I hope everyone enjoyed the festive season and all it had to offer, and trust we all made a few resolutions for good measure as well. Every year we embark on a new journey into a promising fresh year, armed with optimistic and hopeful resolutions that we pray we might keep. I have in the past, like many before me, taken up the challenge of keeping to new years promises of being 10kgs lighter and 10 times wiser and hoped they would come true. I guess we all know that the only one who can achieve this is the one we call ourselves, and if we are lucky we may get a little help from our friends as well. Only we can achieve goals set out for us and the wisest of all take a modest leap of faith when setting the height of their bar. Of course I am not referring to the bar a few of us lean on or hold up around the scene while drinking our weight in poison of choice liquid gold. One must give oneself the edge by at least making sure that goals to be reached are not out of our league or so far off the map that finding the destination is like someone walking to Kilcoy in one thong and a pink bikini.

I gave myself a break this year and just wished for the best I can achieve in 3 simple steps. 1. Smile and laugh more, worry less 2. Look after myself first, and then share the love 3. Don't take life too seriously, think musicals! Voila! Very achievable! I hope you too chose a kinder approach to this unfortunate ritual of setting ourselves up for feeling like failures in our future. Never set yourself up for heartache, just give yourself the love you deserve and keep it simple. No one wants to get to the end of the year and realize that the 20kgs we promised we would lose, somehow managed to follow the G.P.S back to our rear. That fortune you didn't make does not need to haunt your mind if you decide enough can make you happy. Just learn to be one with yourself and happy to be still here breathing in the good fortune of having the chance to see another year in. So many miss the opportunities life brings by missing out on living in the moment when too much focus is placed in the future. I am vowing to never take more from myself than I give to others, and many lessons were learnt in this regard in the year that has past. I will cherish my virtues and squander none on those who don't deserve them, and if you take heed you may do the same. Whatever your wish, all I wish for you, is that you have a Happy New Year!


Copyright © Robyn Whittaker. 2010.

Balls and Tinsel!

Well it's that time of the year again when we shake off the tree and fill it with balls and tinsel and hope the fat old man in a red suit leaves us something under it for our yearly efforts. This part of the world warms up and the other part cools down and we all think of the good and the bad times past. No amount of shaking the boxes produces that Prada handbag or Jimmy Choos that I have wished for in years gone by and this year I guess will be much the same. I too will enter the land of gastronomical madness and produce a euro styled hot banquet of turkey and baked ham fit for a queen, punctuated with custard drowned pudding. I will no doubt drink my weight in champagne, pausing briefly to rest my stomach before re-emerging to inhale what is left over. Christmas is my favourite time of the year, a period where many of us gather together to celebrate what it is to be human in this consumer obsessed planet we call earth. It's the thought that counts they say, but who of us would scowl at a box of Chanel or a Gucci watch with a diamond or two.

Of course we do encounter the odd scrooge or two on our travels who spit and splatter about how vile it all is and how we should somehow feel guilty for just having a good time. Take no heed to these nay sayers and party poopers who relish any chance to ruin someone’s happiness, they are just there to remind us of how not to act and challenge us to have fun in spite of their efforts. Park your clown car of fun where ever you like this silly season and surround yourself with family and friends and enjoy the month that ends with presence of mind and the presents you find. Drape your life with a sparkle and a smile, never wane from joyful desire. Spare a thought for those less fortunate, the sick and lonely without family and open your heart to those on a limb. Many a Xmas orphan has found their way to my home in years gone by and I delight in sharing the day and all it has to offer with them. Finally when all else fails, the tinsel disintegrates and your tree falls apart and no amount of turkey or ham fills your hole, just think of the gift of the life you've been given and turn all your thoughts into gold. Most of all, may my wish come true, I hope you have a Merry Christmas.

Copyright © Robyn Whittaker. 2010