Dear LPG,

I am writing this down at the beginning of December in the hope that LPG will be able to post my message on the last day of 2018, which will be a time when Christmas is over, and we all tend to look forward to the beginning of yet another New Year.  If we have forgotten that this is going to happen we know that as soon as the turkey has been eaten the Television, Radio and shops will be throwing us reminders at every opportunity.

There will be the offers of new diet plans, fashions and cheap deals on next year’s holidays which will remind some that January is a time to look forward, but for many it will just remind them of how depressed and negative they are feeling.

So, for all those who don’t have family members who have plans for them to get involved in as they watch to see how well the younger ones attack their new goals, and for those who perhaps lost a loved one last year and are facing the prospect of the first New Year without them, I want to say Happy New Year.

There has to be something to look forward to positively and if nothing else this must be a time to work out what the positive aspect of 2019 is going to be for you.  I would ask you to remember that the first day of a New Year is a time when you can resolve to be more positive whatever your circumstances and those positive changes don’t have to be big to be life changing. 

I live alone, and my health is not the best, but I still think that however negative life looks; each and every one of us has to have something relatively positive to look forward to.  If not something that we already have and need to change, there must be something that we can look forward to starting in the New Year.  Perhaps learning something new or making a new friend, finding a new day centre to attend or changing your hairstyle. 

So even if you are not going to call it a New Year’s resolution, please find a focus for 2019. 

OV, Lewisham.

LPG has found some links which we hope will lead you to think a little more positively although these are always aimed at younger people, they may still get us elders thinking.  After all, we are people too!

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