HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!

I sit here on the first day of 2011 and feel, well, about the same as on the last day of 2010. It's funny how we look to these times to provide some huge sense of change, but do they really? Change is often a much slower, gradual process. And so I will take that and my hope is this: by the END of 2011 I will feel a change vs today. A better change. A better person. A better, more fulfilled life. On that note, some focus areas:

* it's time to live! not just exist and breathe and be physically present in this world. but to be fully engaged, to be emotionally present, and be a part of something bigger than myself. I haven't donated much to charity these past few years largely due to financial constraints, but there's more I can do than write a check for a few thousand dollars. And it's OK! I've had this nagging feeling that unless I can give as much as I used to, that it's not enough. Hell yes it's enough. $5 is enough.

* surpass my shyness and be who I feel I am inside. I still find it interesting that so few people consider me a shy person. I can be social, I enjoy meeting people and getting to know them, can give work presentations just fine, etc. But inside, showing who I truly am, nuh uh. Scary shit. This shyness has held me back in life and I know that. I withdraw. I want to dance, yet am too embarrassed and so I sit. I want to explore new things, but that's putting myself out there. Hmmm, as I'm writing this I have to wonder: is what I've been terming a shyness really a fear of failure????? What I'm writing about seems more in line with that: I'm afraid to put myself out there b/c I don't want to be laughed at, don't want to seem incompetent, don't want to not be "good enough". Well, this is intriguing and whereas at first I blew off my next Osho as being much too simple to spend much time writing about, it's perfect for me right now: Be Like a Child.