Finally, we have arrived at the New Year. I love the fresh feeling and hope that the dawn of a new year brings and this year we also mark a new decade. It is a time for looking forward. It is time to stop wasting time with regrets or worrying about the year that has finally ended.

2010 was a challenging and difficult year for Ireland and her people. I, no doubt am not alone is being very glad to see the back of it. Last night, for the first time in many years, we just sat by the fire as a family and allowed the old year to slip into history. (Before you wonder if I have lost it altogether – me and him did have a glass or four of wine!) Today we are looking forward to all the possibilities this brand new year may bring to us.

So what about this new decade? I am hoping that we will make 2011, the year that hope is reborn in Ireland. We lost so much confidence in 2010. We were bombarded by a media obsessed with our economic difficulties. In 2011 I believe, that each of us need to make a conscious decision each day to hold on to hope. We need to focus on the future and on recovery. But most of all we need to hold onto the belief that we can make it happen…. And we will.

Personally, along with hope, I am going to attempt to live fearlessly this year. Many of us are finding that fear is making it difficult to see a way ahead. Fear is a very limiting and damaging emotion and is only useful if you are facing directly and immediately into danger. Fear should be fleeting – not long term.

So I say drop the fear, hang onto hope and march confidently on into the new decade! Fake it till we make it, if you like. Although the last verse of Bette Midler’s The Rose also captures the sentiment perfectly:

When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been to long,
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong,
just remember in the winter
far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed that with the sun’s love
in the spring becomes the rose.

May we all witness the blooming of prosperity, justice and peace for all in 2011

Barbara