New Year's Wishes for 2011

This is the Christmas/New Year's card I gave to my young-adult children, December 25, 2010

Actual card: xmas2010.pdf

Text:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

And what a new year it will be, full of hope, promise and change!

As you continue your transition to self responsibility and sufficiency, I trust yours will be an adult life of happiness and accomplishment.

Toward that end, I hope you will always:

* Live each day fully aware not only of your feelings and desires but also of facts. Maturity implies an acceptance of reality as it is and the ability to distinguish subjective from objective. Recognize, respect, and face truth -- the world as it is. Neither avoid nor deny it. Adjust to it.

* Understand and accept who you are -- as you are -- good points and bad. That is not to imply you should not strive for higher achievements and self-improvement, but all such efforts best start with self-awareness and acceptance. You are loved and you deserve to be loved, especially by yourself.

* Honor your own wants, needs and values in socially appropriate ways. Never sublimate these to the wishes or whims of others, for just as you are obliged to respect their right to live a worthy life, they are obliged to respect yours (whether they know it or not).

* Live in ways you believe are ethical and appropriate. Do this so you, who knows everything you do, will approve of how you live. Real happiness is impossible without such self sanction. And should you do something you regret, accept that you are responsible for what you have done. Learn from it; know not to do it again. Then forgive yourself and move on.

* Formulate goals and purposes in life and work to achieve them. Create plans to meet your goals. Take action on those plans. Monitor the success of those actions and adjust accordingly. Circumstances always change, but you can adapt. If one course of action does not work, try another. Just be sure to notice what is working and what is not and you will earn success.

* Find and retain friends and partners who nourish, heal, support, and understand you. Avoid friends and partners who do not. Just remember it is no one's purpose or responsibility to make you happy any more than it is yours to make anyone else happy. Rather, it is mature love and friendship between self-sufficient and self-confident individuals that is the stuff of happiness.

Best wishes in 2011.

Love, Dad