Dear brothers and sisters.

This is the first weekend of the new 2019 year. It is possible that many of us are trying to recover from the hustle and bustle of the shopping, gifts, Christmas and New Year holidays. In short, perhaps we are thinking that it is time to return to the normal rhythm of our lives. Maybe some of us have the famous “New Year’s resolution.” Now that the holidays have passed, we want to resume our lives but we know that we need to make some changes and generally in this time we become more aware of this need with the beginning of the new Year.

A few days ago, I found a short video on the internet where the person who created the video suggests ten things that we must stop doing so as not to disperse our energies. The idea is that these ten things can help us to live better this new year. They are available to everyone and the central idea is not to start doing them, but to stop doing some and learn to do others so as not to wear down our energies that we could use in other ways. I believe that if we put into practice even one of them or if we focus on one, we will see the difference that occurs in our life. The ten things we must stop doing are the following:

1. Worry about what you cannot control. Actually, there are very few things in our life that we control.

2. Being a perfectionist all the time. Not everything has to be good, or as good as I would like it to be.

3. Let yourself be absorbed by what others worry about. We make concerns that belong to others our own. Not worrying about others’ needs is not indifference, but one has to draw a line between what belongs to others and what belongs to me.

4. Help people who do not want to be helped. If someone does not accept our help, he may not need it, or at least he is not willing to accept it from us.

5. Pay too much attention to destructive criticism. There are going to be people who criticize us negatively all the time. It is better to focus on the positive.

6. Spend time with toxic people. You have to avoid spending a lot of time with negative people, pessimistic people, gossiping people, lazy people, people with vices, etc.

7. Do a job that you do not enjoy. We must do what we love the most all the time. If we cannot do it at least we must look for the positive of what we do.

8. Not exercise. We all benefit from physical exercise. The benefit is not only physical, physical exercise also helps us emotionally and psychologically.

9. Not overcoming past wounds. We must learn to overcome the bad that has happened to us. If we do not know how, seek professional help.

10. Not knowing how to say “NO.” We need to give ourselves the freedom to say “no”. Without explanations. “NO” is a complete sentence.

I hope that avoiding any of these things will help us to live with better quality this 2019.

Fr. Manuel Rosiles, MSpS