Happy New Year !

"Learn from yesterday.  Live for today.  Hope for tomorrow."...Albert Einstein

With 2011 coming to a close today, it's that traditional time when we may reflect on the past and plan goals for the future.  New Year's resolutions can be fun to make, and I personally believe that starting out a fresh new year with positive intentions is the right attitude toward success, well being and fulfillment.

Tonight I will be ringing in the New Year surrounded by people I love and I wish them all to be happy, healthy, safe and joyful throughout the New Year.  And in the spirit of a loving-kindness meditation, I wish all those things back to myself.

When I reflect on 2011, I can say my family became stronger and happier as the year progressed.  We faced many difficulties with open minds and hearts and rebounded both quickly and skillfully.  I am grateful for our many blessings and hopeful that next year we'll continue to flourish.

Speaking of flourishing, I would love to share one special moment with you, let's call it our moment of euphoria for 2011.  Someone in my family achieved something incredible, something that I'm so very proud of - more than words can easily express, and something that through twenty-five years of hard-work, determination and perseverance was finally accomplished.  That someone is my husband and that something was his dream of business ownership.  And a very successful business at that!

My husband and I have been together for twenty-six years, and I know more than anyone how much this means to him.  I've been with him the whole way.  He had to learn a very difficult business from the bottom straight to the top.  The first few years were tough, having come to this country at twenty years old and not knowing the language well, he turned to a difficult trade for survival, to pay the basic bills and help care for his family.  He was a young man, alone with an enormous amount of responsibility.  The most unselfish and independent person I've ever met, he helped everyone, asked for nothing in return, worked hard, never complained and thankfully, took well deserved pride in himself.  He was known as the best in his trade and this for a while gave him great satisfaction.  But as he approached thirty, he decided he'd had enough of the physical parts of the job and worked to pursue the business aspects of the industry.  While still maintaining a full time job, he began part time studies in insurance and business management.  Shortly after our son was born, he landed his first step out of the trade - he moved into management as a part time assistant.  After two years, he then moved on to a different employer and was a full time Assistant Manager for three years.  Later he was hired as a General Manager and after about two years, they asked him to start up a new business they were opening (just happens to be five minute drive from our home!), where he would be completely in charge of the day to day operations and business decisions.  He accepted on condition that he would have ownership in the business.  After very successfully starting up this business from scratch, and a lengthy negotiating period, he is now both Manager and Operating Partner and has a large stake in the ownership in the form of shares.  The shares were finally awarded to him in May of this year.  That was our moment of euphoria!!  His hard work and determination paid off, he attained his goals and that was an extremely satisfying moment for us as a family.

My husband is the perfect example of a born leader.  That is his core, signature strength.  He also has courage, perseverance, generosity, integrity, ingenuity and practical intelligence.  I believe he used all his strengths well to get to where he is today.  He is flourishing and as I said before, I could not be more proud of him!

Okay, there was one little extra he had to help him flourish.  He always had and always will have my love, and nothing can ever be accomplished without that.  Like Ralph and Alice (our favourite tv married couple since we were first dating!), Baby you're the greatest!

I loved sharing this story with all of you!  It made me feel so good to write it.  Sharing good news brings about joy and happiness.  I hope it inspired you a little bit as we as a family have had many challenges throughout our life, I've shared some of them on my blog, coping with autism is one example.  Hardships are inevitable as we as a family have learned all too well from our experiences, but as I see it, there are two basic responses to hardship:  despair or hope.  Everyone of us has the potential to flourish, it's not always easy, but when you access those positive emotions like hope each day and reduce your negatives, even and especially during the most difficult days, you too can flourish.

I wish all my readers all the very best in the new year.  Together we will flourish..remember the tipping point of positive to negative emotions (3:1), and know that keeping that in mind and using your strengths to achieve your best (I will be helping you all learn to identify them in the new year), you will have an awesome year.  I'll be doing the same along with you!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Best,

Linda