Now that the calendar has swung around to give us this new year, we are supposed to write about beginnings on our blogs. We are supposed to resolve that this year will be better, thinner, kinder, happier.

Yet, sitting in the same living room where I've lived for most of 2009, looking at this same blog screen I've looked at since 2007, and wearing a t-shirt I've worn since 2003, I won't write about beginnings and resolution.

I will write this:

Strip it all away. The diet plan, the promise that you'll be stronger or kinder, the ten minutes you allot each day for yourself or for others. Strip it all away. The cosmetic, manufactured joy. The gimmicks and quick-fixes. Strip yourself bare.
What do you see? What's really under there? You know what you really need to make you happy. You've always known.

But here's the thing: Can you acquire it? Is that deep-rooted desire realistic? If it is, go get it! Go now. Get it. Cultivate it. Make it real.

But what if it's not? Well, I guess here's my New Year's message about beginnings. Maybe 2010 is when you smack yourself in the face with realism.