Dear LPG,

I live on my own and, I have developed a bit of a lifestyle which includes insomnia.  I have always thought that the New Year hype is a bit of a waste of time anyway.  My habit of letting the New Year see itself in while I find myself in the land of nod is something I have always thought that most older people avoid, but it appears that more and more of us are likely to have missed that actual New Decade-marking moment. 

So I find myself in the early hours of another new year where I have no other forward thought but to just carry on.  I remember thinking about all the really memorable things I was going to do when we arrived at the 21^st century, but 20 years on, I have not got very far with any of them. 

I often think that there is nothing special about a New Year but perhaps it is time to celebrate a little more, revisit all those things that you had planned to do and never got done and make sure that at the end of this year there will be something that you can say that you have achieved, no matter how small.  I have learned that an achievement does not have to be worthy of a Nobel peace prize.

‘Brave words’, I hear you say but, if I am just reflecting the thoughts going through your head, perhaps it is time for you to make a change too. 

The first thing to do is make a list of all the things that you did achieve during 2020, no matter how small, and then workout what you want to work at this year.   I remember glancing at a couple of really similar posts on the LPG pages at the beginning of 2018 and 2019 and moving on, but I revisited them today and realised that LB of Florida did not appear to achieve that much when you first read the posts, but it is all down to that ‘glass half full or half empty’ mentality.  You will be surprised at all the things that you did accomplish, no matter how small. 

I really hope that this time next year a few readers will be able to report some positive things that have happened to them during this year, and that more readers will find themselves in one of the more positive categories when the statistics for people who spend their New Year alone is published.

AO, Bellingham

p.s. 

I have cheated, because I have asked LPG to add this little foot note to my post.  It is now summer and We are now over six months’ closer to the new year and it has been a lot less than a year’s gap since I first wrote this message.  Last January, few people had heard of coronavirus, but perhaps the experience we have all been through, has changed the perspective of a lot of people who saw things the way I did this time last year.  If nothing else we are still here, which is an achievement in itself and I have no doubt that anyone, having found themselves still around after the traumas of last spring, have completely changed their outlook on life for the better.