2010 has a nice ring to it. However, it means that the future has already arrived! I remember the 1984 Science Fiction movie "2010 - The Year We Make Contact." I was 12 years old and 2010 seemed way out there in the future.... Well, little did i know then that 2010 was going to be the "Now." Goes to show you - it is always NOW. If you haven't noticed that yet, you are simply not paying attention. Nothing ever happens in the future. By the time you are there it's the NOW. Furthermore, as this 2010 movie shows...well the when the future arrives as the now, it can be very different than what you may have dreamed of.

As Wikipedia says about the movie: "The film was only a moderate success, disappointing many critics as well as viewers." Replace "the film" with "My Life" and "viewers" with "my own expectations" and you get how most people feel these days about themselves. "My life was only a moderate success, disappointing many critics as well as my own expectations."

Replace "The Film" with "My marriage" and viewers with "family members and friends."..... Get the point.

We often imagine something grand is suppose to happen in the future and when we get there, OMG, that's not what you were expecting even if you get what you though was coming your way! Well, who's fault is this anyway?! I mean this not as that you didn't do your best to get there. I mean this as 1) Expectations - what did you base those expectations on? 2) How attached are you to those expectations? - Did that narrow your filed of vision to the exclusion of awesome opportunities that may have come along and you didn't notice? 3) Everything is grand when you are present for it! Just the fact that you have over a million different processes in your body going on at the same time, with your body made up of 10 - 100 trillion cells, all doing something at the same time - is in itself an amazing manifestation. Every breath you take is amazing. Every time you open your eyes and they behold something - that's amazing too. Tiramisu cake is amazing. The process of growing and birthing a human is beyond amazing. So, how can you say that your life sucks. My neighbors playing Scottish bagpipes at midnight is amazing too. (I do not know how to even hold one)

Really! What you are you focusing on?!

Reality check! There's nothing wrong with reality, only perhaps with your perception and processing of it. Based on that you choose and develop behaviors and adaptations, a.k.a conditioning. That's where suffering comes from, according to the greatest teachers of the past. All of human suffering is nothing more than a psychological, emotional condition locked up in the box sitting on your shoulders and caused by inability to stay present and see things for what they are. Circumstances are circumstances. No circumstances cause an emotional suffering all by themselves. It's hard to accept that if your hubby, or your daddy/mommy uses you as a punch bag. I know. However, you wouldn't be there or stay there, if you were not already suffering. Furthermore, one can be the subject of mistreatment and misfortune and still not suffer. Pain is definite but suffering is optional, teaches the Buddha.

Confusing?
Perhaps.
Try this for the New Year - ask the question "What is this moment?" Focus on what is going on within and without and see what it does for you.

Try yoga and mediation while you are at it. Get skills for happy living under all circumstances :)

Cheers.