Fresh start

What are your New Year's resolutions? What is your frame of mind as you begin a fresh start. Are you optimistic? Please share your thoughts.

Dickie Eason of Cary sent me a wonderful roadmap for the year ahead. Dickie says he received part of this message about ten years ago. Since then he has been remodeling and adding to it. I thought it was so good I wanted to share it with our Carolina Conversations community.

Share your treasure.

Encourage youth.

Manifest your loyalty to others in word and deed.

Keep your promises.

Nurture your appetite for learning.

Find the time.

Be thankful for your life and the opportunities ahead.

Believe in yourself.

Try to forgive.

Offer your hand to those who struggle.

Listen.

Hug tightly the good times.

Respond to adversity with determination and confidence.

Apologize if you were wrong.

Don’t look down on others unless you are trying to lift them up.

Skip the bandwagon.

Against all pressure, try to do what you know is right.

Reach out.

Try to understand.

Express your appreciation.

Do NOT assume.

Replace despair with action.

Recognize that you know very little and you will instantly increase your intelligence.

Examine your demands on others.

Do not judge.

Be kind, be gentle – but stand your ground.

Laugh a little. Laugh a little more.

Work hard - deserve confidence. Take nothing for granted.

Be tenacious in pursuit of your most cherished dreams.

Reject incompetence and identify it as such.

Use your experience to help others treading in new waters.

Take care of your spirit.

Give no quarter to injustice and stand up to its perpetrators.

Settle only for your best.

Search for the truth – don’t let others define it for you.

Don’t let others define you.

Examine your motives.

Care for the animals.

Welcome a stranger.

Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth –

Take part in its preservation.

Gladden the heart of a child.

Live each moment – fully.

Speak your love.

Speak it again.

Speak it still once again.