New year brings growth, opportunities

This year was pretty good.

Sure, bad things happened, but there were also good things for the nation, the world and us as individuals and as a staff.

We don't think any of us started 2010 planning all of the things that were going to happen, and there were positive and negative surprises along the way.

We're all hoping that next year will be better…and usually it is. You'll be better at school, work or whatever you're doing as you learn what works and what doesn't.

You'll be more mature in other ways and gain more ability to deal with stress, relationships and holiday shopping.

Hopefully, other people will experience the same growth and be able to deal with you, and your relationships will improve too.

Each year brings new challenges too.

For those of us who are graduating in May, job hunting should have already started.

Planning for senior comprehensive, making sure all of our credits are straightened out and other things that go into graduation need to be dealt with.

For those who are starting Freshmen entering their second semester in January, you might be reevaluating your expectations of college, friends and yourself.

Many of us are making plans for the new year, and that includes things we're determined to do to improve ourselves.

New years resolutions should be an attempt to shape the direction of improvement, but too often they end up becoming a single focal point and the entire forward motion ends up broken when your resolution fails.

Maturity is not an automatic process, it takes some effort each year and each day in order to become a better person.

But it's not something you can force.

So not to discourage the making of new year's resolutions, but don't put all your effort into them.

Maturity and self-improvement are an organic process and don't necessarily conform to a program or system.