Happy New Year!

What is it about January the first. Something in us loves a fresh start, no matter how arbitrary. Birthdays are one of those starts. In a few weeks I turn 49, and of course I plan on turning around all of my bad habits by the time I turn the big FIVE-OH. But the classic slate-clearing day has to be New Years. Hoist the champagne and start breaking the resolutions you just made. Year after year the same old same old.

As I get older I see two sides to the beginning of a New Year. There's the positive side, the opportunity to look back on what went right last year, and to anticipate (and hope for) good things in the New Year. There's the reality that no matter how bad things are, things are so much worse for so many, and to be grateful for that. In short, it's a time to count one's blessings, and plan for continued success.

But life isn't always like that is it? And that's the flip side of New Years for me. In my darker New Years Eve moments there are thoughts of those love ones lost in the past year, and the gruesome nagging premonition that my circle of friends and family is likely to be smaller next New Years than this one.

There's the business aspect, and worrying not worrying about whether my businesses will see success this year, but rather whether they'll even be around next year.

There's the socio-political aspect, worrying about increasing war, and incompetence of government. Worrying whether yet another immoral unethical unintelligent poser will make it to white house.

There's the impending high school graduation, and sending the last child off to college. A daughter, and knowing how much I miss my son when he's away, and the tears that will inevitably come as I proudly drop my little girl off at some university.

But it does no good to dwell on the negative. That way lies madness. So I choose to look on the positive side of the first of January, knowing it's just a day, but clearing the decks anyway. It's all new. Anything is possible. Here's to a great 2008. Happy new year all.