Happy New Year – what pressure I feel when using or receiving those words! Sure, I try to be happy, to find and live in the slipstream of universal joy, but those WORDS just seem so judgemental to me.

The great annual challenge. Do I have to be happier than I was last year for it to count? Am I slacking off if I’m only (only?!?) as happy as last year, or as happy as usual? If I have to think about it, am I just pretending to be happy?

Is it possible to have neutral feelings (you know, the way you feel without either any negative OR positive stimuli), and if so, can that be classified as happy when it may merely be the absence of sad, bad, or mad feelings?

You see, for someone who usually just lives, without judging how I’m feeling from moment to moment, this annual foray into introspection is off-putting. Much easier to be just IN the moments of my life than to extend the invisible selfie stick of self-evaluation. Thankfully, in a week or so that annual Happy New Year challenge will be safely tucked away again!