I’m not typically a fan of New Years. It’s a pretty arbitrary holiday, that causes us  to talk a little while about the year. I think last year I spent the holiday playing cards with my grandparents and great aunt & uncle. The year before that I spent it home alone watching the Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi channel, which all in all was pretty decent. This year I’ll probably do some cleaning, play some Xbox, eat some Sociables, drink some green apple soda, and sit around with my guitar trying to work on a cover of A Long December (largely because I no longer have the SciFi channel). A couple times I have tried to go out and do the partying thing with my peers, but I worry about silly things like getting home safe and I don’t drink much anyway [Incidentally, I've been buzzed from alcohol twice in my 28 years, and both times in 2009. Once in October playing Dr. Mario, and once two weeks ago at my father's 50th birthday party, which I'm still a little embarrassed about. Not looking forward to the first time it goes too far.]

Recently I had a discussion with a friend about happiness that made me think (and subsequently I’ve been bouncing the idea off others, so I’m recycling it again here). What defines our capacity to be happy? I see so many people that seem to be happier than I am, but maybe they just put on their game face when they’re out. That isn’t to say that I’m sitting around wallowing in despair, but could definitely stand to have some more cheer in the New Year. It occurs to me that maybe happiness is  state of mind and if you decide you want to be happy, then all you have to do is BE HAPPY. So I’m going to listen to A Long December a couple more times in 2009, and maybe kick off 2010 with some happy songs. I’m open to suggestions.

Personally, every year since 2005 has been getting just a little better, but I feel the speed of progress is lacking. 2009 was sort of a mixed bag. I’m still uncertain about some of the changes I’ve made and looking forward to making some more. This hasn’t exactly been the profound end of year post I was hoping to write, but that’s appropriate. It wasn’t a terribly profound year for a lot of us.

Filed under: General by John