I have had several emails from some of the veteran list members who remember me posting my New Year Resolutions in 1998 and 1999 and asking for a repeat, so here goes. At this time every year, I continue to observe the resolutions I made at the end of the civil war in my country in 1980. I was in my early 20s and had spent what should have been my early working life fighting a guerrilla war and being bombed and shot at. Many of my school friends were dead or wounded. After 8 years of fighting, 32,000 of my countrymen had been killed and the same number blind, mad, limbless or injured in some other way. A massive 1.5 million had lost their homes or were refugees. It was a sobering time for a young man. Today, I have close friends from both sides of the war and I can assure you that the old saying is true : "For those who have fought for it, life has a sweetness that the protected will never know." My thoughts in 1980 were: 1. Live life as though this was your last day on earth. Forgive your enemies in case you're not here tomorrow to do it. Tell your friends that you love them ... for the same reason. 2. This is YOUR day and NO ONE is that important that you should allow them to disturb your personal equilibrium. No one can upset you to any great degree. You can only be upset by people if you allow yourself to be. If you forgive quickly and think of how many good people love you, you soon get over the hurt and move onto better things. In the measure of human challenge, the problem you face is probably very small and there are bigger and more noble issues waiting to occupy your time. Life's too short and death too sudden to allow yourself to remain disturbed by the things other people say or do. 3. If the shower water is cold or the sun too hot, say to yourself : "Isn't it wonderful that I can feel, that I'm alive to these sensations." 4. Write and record your thoughts. On a postcard, in a letter, in a story, in a diary, on an email -- in any manner at all because they will also be a source of fun, comfort and strength to you when you read them in years to come. When you are gone these words will be real treasures to those who are left behind. I wish my parents and the friends I lost had written more so that I could read their words now. 5. Decide what it is you want to do -- and do it. Do it! -------------------- May 2002 be your best year ever. Plan it that way and it will be. All the best, Geoff in Harare PS No snow here -- 25 decgrees C and a big blue sky