Happy New Year :) 22yrs tomorrow! And Cainer says you can cast positive resolutions in concrete tonight.

http://www.icq.com/img/friendship/static/card_16961_rs.swf
HAPPY NEW YEAR e card

Right. Yeah, another ! year on the sober block, as opposed to up some alcoholic creek without a paddle. Hehehe A creek I got to know ALL too well before I decided to take the advice of some friendly alcohol counselors and put the drinking on hold and go to aa meetings. Cool. Now all I need to do is maintain (what I consider to be) a respectably low fat percentage, then I will have !! everything! ...Just kidding.. But yeah its always work staying the weight you want to be. There are "no days off" with that one either! Shame! I have to undo the December excesses. Oh well.

More importantly. Cainer says your thoughts will become things that STICK this new year. Enabling you to cast a positive resolution in concrete. So to speak. Great!

Cainer said yesterday:
Tomorrow brings the awkward convergence of an earthly tradition and a cosmic apparition. Normally, New Year’s Eves come and go without too much fuss. We celebrate. We sing. We make our resolutions then we carry on. But what if some heavenly force were secretly listening in to our every vow, offering full celestial support in ensuring those promises were completely carried out? Tomorrow night, Saturn turns stationary. Such conditions favour those who wish to make a decision and ‘cast it in concrete’ so that it can never be changed. Be very careful not to make a ‘negative’ resolution.
And today he said:
It’s rare to have New Year with a stationary Saturn. Resolutions made under this cosmic climate will prove particularly powerful and unnervingly easy to keep!

Hehe I know what resolutions I want this year.
There are study ones, career ones, fat percentage ones, gym ones, and nearest and dearest ones. Loads! So I am getting busy formulating my desired destinations in my mind today to garner momentum and staying power from the freakishly rare unmoving hulk of Saturn. Cool.

So I hope you all have a peaceful new year and for those of you that are newer to sobriety, don't suffer to much from peer pressure that convinces you that you OUGHT to be doing ?? Something expensive overcrowded and unfunny, just because you feel imposed upon by ? nameless social conventions. Life is too !! short. Do whatever you fancy and don't feel guilty about it. If you don't want to stand for 40mins in a !! freezing queue to get in to some sort of 'exclusive' club only to find it full of lurching unintelligible alcohol sodden, or 'wired' people functioning only on the most reduced limbic brain state, well, you will be glad !! to hear that you ! don't ! have ! to! Thank god. Leave that 'luxury' to the active alcoholics, and THEY can pay 50 quid to stand in an overcrowded bar with slightly overweight red faced lurching individuals who have difficulty forming sentences. :) Trust me, you'll meet a MUCH nicer bunch in the gym. Or basically ! anywhere where the main form of entertainment is NOT being anesthetized, and out of control. Basically. Hehe

Right well you can tell how much I enjoy the company of active alcoholics on their home turf. Not much basically. They are bearable when they are sober but get repetitive and dull after a few so I make my excuses and leave when their social skills get clumsy which sadly can happen quite quickly. I manage to enjoy those sorts of occasions by just seeing what I can do for others while I'm there. Without being a doormat that is. As there are plenty of awkward ! social moment due to the disihibiting affects of alcohol, there are plenty of opportunities for service to change the subject quickly and gloss things over in a social sense.
There are loads of AA new years nights here if you like that kind of thing. They can be quite sweet. Like a wedding disco or something. A wide mix of people catching up with each other, throwing a few shapes, and not taking themselves too seriously.
Plus they have seriously great fireworks by the river and millennium wheel over here, and smaller displays all over. If you can bear the cold!

Or, you can enter the new year with 5 - 20 mins of meditation.
Ajahn Chah used to say, "If you want to change the world learn to make your mind still. To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders."

Brahmavihara Meditation (Boundless Equanimity, Love, Appreciative Joy and Compassion) - mp3, 20mins
http://tinyurl.com/brahmavihara
World Peace Meditation - mp3, 15mins
http://tinyurl.com/7enoj9
You can use any of these to enter the new year meditating...or simply sit in receptive silence.
As part of the meditation session it will be good to focus loving, peaceful thoughts to the troubled regions in our world today.
"Khanti paramam tapo titikha"
Patient endurance is the supreme austerity.
Wishing you an equanimous new year.

Right. Gym. Essays.
Have a good one, whatever you do :)