A perfect reminder for all of us.

You deserve someone who wants you, only you, and makes you feel wanted. Someone who can’t help but message you first thing in the morning when the sun light is slow-dancing through the curtain, and they’re barely waking. Someone who wants to spend their Friday nights with you, but also their lazy lemonade Sundays. Someone who holds their one-person umbrella right above you when it’s bucketing down, so that you’re sheltered, even if it means they get soaked through. You deserve someone who thinks of you, often. Someone who calls you on the phone at the end of a long day, because they want to hear the sound of your voice before they drift off into slumber. Someone who makes plans with you on a Tuesday evening, because the weekend is just too far away, and who cares if we have to go to work the next day.

You do not have to push yourself into the practice of meditation, but just let be. If you practice in this way, a feeling of space and ventilation automatically comes. It is the expression of the buddha nature or basic intelligence that is working its way through confusion.

Excerpted from:
The Four Noble Truths, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Listening speaks one of our deepest needs: to be understood or to feel understood. Yes, we might like people to agree with us, take our side, but it is a great gift when we feel that the person understands us, even if the person does not agree with us. It shows the person cares. It develops trust. It connects us. Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking. One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say. Truly listen to others and to the universe.  When we actively listen with an open heart and open mind, we’re often surprised at what we learn.

This is your year – the year you stop making everyone happy besides yourself, the year you know you matter and the year you let your voice shine. This is the year of you.

This year don’t do things like 2016. Don’t surrender your happiness in order to make someone else happy while you’re miserable. Don’t give into people’s requests who would never lift a finger for you. Don’t say yes when all you want is to say no. Don’t put yourself through that self-inflicting torture anymore because you matter – you matter.

If you’re working a job that’s making you miserable, a job that literally makes you want to break down in tears before you go because you hate it so much – quit.

Don’t do anything that doesn’t inspire you to live a better life. Don’t do anything that drains you more than it fulfills you.
If you hate your job that much then there is no point in continuing to do it. Look for another job, look anywhere else that you think would make you happier.

Your happiness is important; you shouldn’t constantly put it on the back burner for a paycheck or to make others happy.

Your happiness and your mental health go hand-in-hand. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself that you fail to take care of yourself, that you wind up sick and mentally drained. Don’t torture yourself in this way because no amount of money is worth this self-inflicting pain.

Find the things that make you smile and keep doing them. Cherish the things that make you feel loved and don’t ever let them go. Hold on to the moments that make your stomach ache from so much laughter and don’t ever take them for granted. Life is good, life is so good as long as you allow it to be.

In 2017 don’t dwell on the negatives, laugh off the disasters and turn your attention to the good. If it won’t matter a couple years from now it’s nothing to stress yourself out about even if it feels like the world is crashing down at you in the moment, just know it will pass.

Just do what makes you happy this year. If that means breaking up with your partner who you feel is holding you back, let them go. If that means quitting your job, moving across the world, getting a divorce or stepping out of your comfort zone for the first time, please do it.

Life is meant to be lived, it’s meant to be enjoyed because there are millions of things to be seen and happy about, but we often only experiences a sliver of them. So make 2017 your year, make it the year that makes you happy, let it be your best year yet.

Don’t be afraid to try something new because the worst that happens is you fail, but at least you’re trying, at least you’re doing something to better yourself.

This year don’t focus on anyone else. Don’t focus on your parents or your friends or your coworkers – focus on you.

Make yourself the center of your world and care for yourself the way you care about the people you love. Go the extra mile you’ve gone for so many other people in your life, but this time go the distance for yourself.
You deserve that.

Every new year you tell yourself this is going to be your year, but this time really mean it.