2012 and the end of the world

2013 is going to be an awesome year.

Not because we won't have challenges along the way, they are to be expected, but because we claim it to be a year of strength, perseverance, faith, hope, blessings and breaking free.

So, at the onset of this new and eventful year, me and little one will spend the last day of 2012 preparing for new beginnings.

This year has been a fairly good one. My little family has had a good share of troubles, tears and worries and a number of unexpected turn of events and challenges in our path to a better life. But in God's Grace, we ended the year with a little triumph in our hearts, big smiles plastered on our faces and stronger hope that we will have an even better year next year.

From these trying moments, I have learned so much and discovered so many things.
Among the important ones, I know that we should always:

* Keep the faith. With hope burning, we allow ourselves to witness miracles.
* Keep calm and stay in the presence of a Higher Being and in Him rest our doubts and worries. This will allow this inexplicable sense of serenity to take over.
* Remember that we have everything we need to become better persons.
* Never forget to tap our inner selves;
* And spend a few minutes of contemplation each day- find the fate that was carved out for us and achieve what we are born to achieve.
* Value family even more. Because at the end of the day, the home we come home to is just an empty shell without the love and laughter we share with closest to the heart.
* Appreciate true friends - who never leave your side even if you clam up and see or feel nothing.
*Sift through the important and non-important; valuable and invaluable; and de-clutter your days with unnecessary emotions.
* Identify 'gangrined' people and choose to cut off relationships that do not serve the purpose well. There will always be those claiming to be friends but stand by your side with envy and a quiet wish for your to fail.
Such is a reality difficult to understand, but nonetheless true. We don't need these so-called friends.
* Feel the generosity of kindred spirits. And feel the appreciation of people we have helped one way or another from the days, months or years passed. Just as we try our best to appreciate people who stayed with us through trials and triumphs.
* Remember to open our windows each morning to let the sunshine and the cool morning breeze in. This will allow all negative emotions from yesterday to flow out and allow the new rays of light to flow in.
* Never forget our manners, in every thing we do. Say Thank you, I'm sorry, Please because these magic words go a long way.

* Always choose to do what is right -- even if there is an option to do otherwise.

Most importantly, we should always:

* Bask in gratitude. Always give thanks for the days that seem to be difficult, because we know we still have strength to fight; for the mornings that wake us up each day, because we know that we still have hope to have better days; for random moments of simple happiness, because we know, by heart, that we are happiest with the simplest things in life.


This year, I have found what I have struggled finding for more than two decades of existence.

I found myself, and the courage and confidence to affirm the purpose of my existence.

Indeed, 2012 is my year of transformation.

An epic year where I shed off old skin, old pains and faced the difficulty of evolution.
And from this difficult moments, I emerged to be the better Me, on the way finding the best part of my being.

It was, aptly put, an end of a world I once knew and an end to the self that I have always maintained to know.

The changes manifest.
And if you are close to me, you will also see and feel the difference of this person standing in front of you from the one that you have known from years before.

As I end this year, I can tell with greatest surety, that I am already a different being. Not just because I can feel it, but also because I know it now.

And I am happy.
Happy with this realization,
for the start of new adventures,
for the new perspective in life.

Happy that as I enter 2013 and (my 30th birth year), I know, with utmost confidence that this year is going to be an event of epic proportions.

Tomorrow, on the first sunrise of 2013, let us write our hopes and plans and allow them to fly to the heavens.

Claim it. For our hopes and dreams are always ours.
As someone wise once told me, our year is what we make of it.

Happy New Year, folks! :)