New Year Resolutions

Last night, the first night of the new year תש"ע I was sitting in my bed preparing a list of resolutions to make my life more abundant. I split them into categories, and would like to share one of these with you - the spiritual growth category.

• I will train my happiness muscle in order to be happier
  
  Happiness is not material, or measurable. If you base your happiness on achieving goals, being loved, getting this or another job title or career move and so on - you will always look on to that next check mark and or wonder "is that it?" once you arrive where you set to go.
  
  I believe happiness can be achieved in tiny measures and constantly throughout our lives. Happiness is in those small real moments - when you see a perfect sky while driving to work, when a chubby pink baby kisses you, when you see a dance or hear music that makes you cry with joy, when you see a silly looking dog wearing a sweater running with its tongue handing out, when you enter a warm bed on a cold night and wiggle your toes happily under the covers - all those tiny moments that make you thankful for being alive sum up in being a happy person. And noticing these moments and cherishing them, creating an ever growing "database of happy moments", is a skill that must be mastered if you want to be happy. And this I intend to work on this year.
  
  
• I will practice accepting the world does not revolve around me in order to suffer less
  
  Deepak Chopra recently twitted
  

  If you really want to suffer,try personalizing everything that happens

  and I am the grand master of that. I come to understand that the greatest source of suffering is this. I used to think disappointing myself by not achieving goals I set for myself is the primary source for suffering, that and losing certain status symbols that make me lose face or ruin my public image. If you take out achieving goals as the main and long lasting source of happiness, then you are left with understanding it cannot be your source of pain.
  
  
• I will practice seeing myself as innocent instead of guilty
  
  I am constantly burdened with guilt about mostly everything that happens. Since the previous resolution relives my assumption that as the center of the universe, I must be the cause to everything that happens around me, I better practice accepting that in order to have an easier life.