resolute.

on honesty.

for this year, i will try to speak my truth silently.

the world, after all, affords us a plethora of words, and we are given the liberty to play with the permutations of which words to use and imbue them with our emotions.

for this year, i vow to think and think hard before i speak, and i will discern before i let out my words, because last year, my obsessive propensity to please others, even at the expense of myself, was what got me into petty skirmishes with friends and foes alike.

i will speak only of good things, and when i find myself in the company of people whose words are laced with poison, i will just smile and not be sucked in by their darkness.

for it is very easy to spew out words of condemnation and lash out at people with our verbal poisons, but it takes courage to temper one's words, lest they become ammunitions that will scathe, sometimes irrevocably, those around us.

on the present.

for this year, i will try to be content with the present.

for the past year, i have realized that i was usually weighed down by the ghosts of my past, and the uncertainty of my future.

when melancholia soaks me wet, i often think of things that have long been relegated to memory --and i pine for them. i drift into the realm of what has already been, and i cling on to these shadows until my heart can no longer breathe from exhaustion.

but during pensive moments, i fret about the future and cringe at the prospect of failure. failure, you see, has been a recurring theme in my life, and even when i have made that first step towards fulfilling my childhood dream, i still become wary of the randomness of the stars.

for this year, i vow to be content with what is, and do away with what has been and what could be. i will be content with watching the stars shimmer on a beautiful night, or bask in the beautiful prose of talented story weavers, or be enthralled by the beauty of love as it unfolds.

on my year.

this year will be my year, and yes, as early as now, i am already claiming it.

happy new year, friends.