Happy New Year, er... strike that! May you be mindful!

We all think about sitting down and starting a list of new year's resolutions and I admit I am a pretty big list maker.  I make lists to make lists and then it feels good, you have three cat boxes to clean out so you don't write clean out cat boxes you write:

1. Clean Cat Box
2. Clean Cat Box
3. Clean Cat Box

And then it feels so good when working down your list of 1200 things to do and you see you really only got 3 things done they were all these great stinky things, like cleaning out the cat boxes.

Well, 2009 has been a rough year and I want to say Happy Holidays and Have a Great New Year, but somehow I feel like that may be a bit lost or lost in transmission so instead I am going to say... Happy Mindfulness and may you not be plagued by Forgetfulness.  In 2009, we at Antharia have seen a number of our nonprofit partners go out of business or become unable to make their most minimal payments. I personally lost my Mother on December 21st and am going to be taking time off in January to continue to deal with her estate.  There will be no services, Sharon was cremated on December 24th and a memorial has been set up to help arrange for her final wishes.

For me as the founder, leader and partner to nonprofits being hurt so very dearly by this market and economic crisis there are few ideas or concepts I can offer, or at least not at this hour.  As the daughter, and now last living relative that I have, I can only offer myself mindfulness to remember that my Mother was proud of me and honored all that I did at Antharia.  She spoke highly of all things we have done and seek to do.  So for all of us, Antharia staff, Antharians, friends and family, I say to you, and I challenge you not to simply have a great new year, but to find mindfulness.

Now I will admit mindfulness is one of those words that can come and go with meaning.  It can be something as simple as remembering to be patient when someone at work asks you the same question for the 100th time, but it can also be far more reaching when trying to balance mindfulness with forgetfulness. For me "tying a yellow ribbon around my finger" will often do the trick.

From things at home to work, to things with friends and family and even just those thoughts running around in my head.  But it seems that what happens most in my efforts for mindfulness is I am plagued with forgetfulness.  Now, I often will add some of the blame to my forgetfulness on my MS.  I mean, I have over 100 post it notes hanging around my apartment ranging from things like "don't forget your keys" to "take the bread to work".  I know it can seem silly but if you follow my personal blog at 6hundred50thousand.com you will see I talk a lot about these cognitive challenges of MS, and some of the utter nonsense these books push out.

So anyway... 2009 has come to a close and here we have our first formal blog of 2010.  I can't promise you a list of resolutions or things that the team at Antharia will do.  The developers are no more likely now to speak human than they ever have and the leadership team will continue to ask you "why" so many times you start to personally seek to have it stricken from the English language.

Posted by Jordan Dossett on January 01, 2010 at 06:03 am EST

Copyright © Antharia. All rights reserved.
No part of this blog may be reproduced without prior written permission.