I hear many people talk about their longing for a balanced life. What I think they are really expressing is a desire for a life with less pressure.

Your success will shine as a light of hope and inspire numbers you cannot total.

Shake structures. School yourself. Look twice at a thing, once upside down. Answer yourself clearly.

May your season shine with delight and surprise.

Every possibility begins with the courage to imagine.

I offer gentle understanding to myself. I position myself in love, not fear. I look behind me with forgiveness. I look forward with festive anticipation. I embrace this holy moment and assert, "Now. This moment is the moment to love, the moment to serve, the moment to seize the legacy instead of the small. Now. Now I will live large, love boldly, reach to the edges of my unfurled heart and fully enrolled hope."

Making promises to myself, in my personal writing practice, has been important to me all my life. In practical application it is so much easier for me to make promises to others, and keep them, than it is to make promises to myself. "Why is that?" and the answer I gave myself is that in making promises to others I create a model of accountability and reinforcement. I duplicate that in my writing and have grown increasingly better at making and keeping promises to myself.