Negative Nellie In The New Year?

I'm ususally not known for being a negative person. Duh. I make my living showing folks how to find the good in all situations, right?

Well, I'm having a little trouble justifying and figuring out how I feel about the end of 2010 and the start of 2011. In 2010, we dealt with severe economic difficulties, we lost two family members, and (no exaggeration here), I almost died due to medical complications post surgery. All these things combined make me pretty excited to wish a bon voyage to 2010.

Now, my dilemma comes in like this: should I be happy about putting 2010 behind me? Or should I be happy to implement the things I learned for 2011? Both? Neither?

Let's look at some positive things that happened in 2010 to neutralize the negative: I received Garrett, my 2 year old yellow lab Seeing Eye dog, I made plenty of new friends, I published a new book, received the Patient of Courage award from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and still got to wake up every morning with my best friend.

I guess when you break it down, the best we can do is take everything in, both good AND bad things, and do our best to progress and learn from our experiences. And that's exactly what I plan to do in 2011. Happy New Year, friends!