New Year, new me!

Dream big, live bigger!

A year ago I had a dream. Today I am living it everyday. Not because of luck but because I worked tirelessly, enthusiastically and authentically to create it. Five working weeks into 2014 and I am ecstatic with the courageous choices I made last year. It’s fair to say I am a lot wiser and freer than I was one year ago. I’d be honoured for you to read what I learnt:

Risk it all because then you’ll know how much it’s worth!
Say yes to every opportunity. You’ll never know if it’s right for you ’til you try it on.
Grow vegetables and if not vegetables, herbs. Life just taste better this way.
Back yourself!
There are pretenders out there. Ignore them and get on your way. You’re great. They are not.
Be nice to animals.
Get a credit card and travel. You’re a long time dead.
Show – don’t just tell – your family how much you love and admire them. We’re all just little kids wanting people to tell us we’re doing good.
When people tell you have to prove yourself, don’t believe it. The only person you are accountable to is the one who looks back at you in the mirror. Fact.
Buy local.
Cherish the ones you love most because when shit gets real you’ll need them.
Learn how to parallel park and drive a manual.
Don’t be scared of spiders. They’re teeny. You’re big. And they do more good than harm.
You don’t have to be a mother to be a woman. You don’t have to have kids to be a nurturer.
Say thanks lots and lots and lots and lots.
Buy art because you love it.
Always, always, always be good. In one way or another, karma is real. You’ll never know when the person you treated despicably will share your deeds with people who influence the course of your life.
Get a tattoo.
Just because someone is indicating in their car doesn’t actually mean they are turning. People get distracted. Fact.
Death is really, really hard for the person dying. Be there for the ones you love, to hold their hand and send them gently on their way. It matters.
Do exercise that you LOVE with people you LOVE!
Believe in YOU because you is all there is to make change happen.
Make change happen!

I’d love to leave you with a quote that will be my guiding light for 2014, New Zealand’s election year. It was said by my great grandfather – the man we called Grandie – Prime Minister Sir Walter Nash whose influence on my family and life plays out still:

“I don’t want to get rid of poverty just to ensure that prosperity is maintained; I want to get rid of poverty because it is bad, it is wrong, it is immoral, it is unethical, it is un-Christian, it is unfair, and it is unjust, and it is everything that is bad. I mean involuntary poverty – where a man is told that his hands are not wanted, and that his wife and his youngsters will be deprived of the necessary things for health.” – Rt Hon Sir Walter Nash.

And Happy Birthday Dadda for Monday. RIP.