HOLIDAY MAX-OUT

     By the time I get to New Year's Eve, I always feel rather maxed out on everything holiday and celebratory. The balance of work and play and pleasure and productivity has gotten all skewed. Every year I plan to simplify, to make it different somehow, and every year, the over-exaggerated emotional nature of the time of year becomes too much. It's haunted time in a way, haunted with old memories, disappointed expectations, unrealistic hopes, inconvenient physical realities, and too much food and forced togetherness. I look forward to getting back to the routine of my life.
     And maybe that's what it's really supposed to be all about anyway, the big blow-out before the fresh start-over. By January 1, we are generally ready to purify and make changes, to examine the real-life conditions in which we find ourselves and be honest, more honest than usual, about what needs adjustment.
     For all my resistance to the over-done nature of Christmas and the week that follows, maybe it happens just the way it does to push us to the next level of growth. Maybe, as always, everything I am wrestling with, is exactly the way it is supposed to be, and ultimately happens for my highest good in the end.

I accept the way I feel and I'm willing to look honestly at my life conditions to make whatever changes are necessary- in attitude, in habit, and in approach- to improve my health and well-being, and to improve my overall state-of-mind.