As the New Year Begins

I'd like to wish everyone a happy New Year...the number 2019 doesn't sound anywhere nearly as significant as the next one, 2020, but maybe historical or personal events will make it profoundly important, who knows.  As Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist-turned-science popularizer, pointed out this morning, January 1 carries with it no special scientific importance...it's just another day on the calendar, that's all.  But since we're social creatures and collectively view the start of a new year as a beginning...or maybe just a reset...I like to speculate as to how I can change for the better, i.e. to take my life up to a higher level.  So, as do many of you, I listed some things that I feel I can improve upon and will help both me and others around me in the year to come...I'll just keep that list to myself for the time being.  As for what will happen in the news, almost all of it is beyond my control except for how I can adjust in reaction to it.  I can't individually change the political landscape either here in America or the world at large, although I can do my miniscule part by simply expressing my opinions here from time to time and voting when the opportunity presents itself.  Speaking of this blog, I plan to continue writing on a daily basis, although I've recently changed a couple of previously regular items...Tuesdays I used to write about different lists I composed or found and Thursdays I would recap the previous Sunday's sermon at the church I attend.  I've stopped both of these, the lists because the process is too time-consuming and the sermon summaries because one, they were essentially only restatements of someone else's work and not my own creative writing and two, because I was not getting the anticipated feedback and interaction (only 8 people responded from 112 sermon summaries over more than two years).  I still like lists and from time to time will present some, and I still attend and listen to the weekly sermons, which are available through YouTube for anyone to watch in their entirety.  So doing this opens up a couple more days each week...either I'll come up with another weekly theme or I'll just write each day whatever comes to mind...