New Year, New You?

2012 was a good year for mice. Scientists found out that they could stop cancer, reverse diabetes, restore vision, eliminate neurological diseases, and just about everything else that a mouse could wish for. How that will translate to you and I is yet to be seen. Mice should not be too happy just yet however, as 2012 also revealed that falsifying research data has become a commonplace issue in the world of academia, as each professor fights to retain employment at all costs.

With the dawning of each New Year, it has become a common practice by many of us to commit, or re-commit ourselves to improving our health. Some of us do that through weight loss or vowing to exercise more. Others decide to eat better, read more, learn a new language or skill, etc. Each of these goals reflects an awareness that we can be more, do more, and be better than we were the year before.

Many people find that their New Year’s resolutions are short-lived aspirations that fall by the wayside within a month or two. Health clubs bank on it as new memberships rise tremendously in January, but attendance falls by February. No need to build a bigger club to accommodate all the new people, just hang in there until February, when they all go back home. It seems that all the fuss about New Year’s resolutions is for naught, as most people aren’t really interested in following through with them, only wishing that somehow they might come true.

Sustaining the efforts needed to achieve our goals can determine if we’ll ever meet them. How many times have you achieved your goal? How many times have you gone back to doing everything you did before, only to recreate the same issues you sought to leave behind once and for all? Some people view failure as a necessity. If you fall, don’t stop. Pick yourself up and continue on. It’s just a part of the process.

I don’t think that health can be viewed as a race that is run and a finish line that is crossed. I think it has to be viewed as a race where there is no finish line, a never-ending journey that increases our appreciation of life and the view along the way. Each step on the journey to health strengthens and renews us, enabling us to continue onward.

Dreams without sustained actions will stay dreams. Give them all you’ve got, then give more. Hold to your course. The rewards can be tremendous, if you’ll only stay around long enough to enjoy them. Here’s to a New You in 2013!

“Happy are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make them come true.”
Anonymous

“Your dreams come true when you act to turn them into realities.”
Anonymous

“Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.”
Napolean Hill

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Winston S. Churchill

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
Robert F. Kennedy

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald