For the most part, each year we experience is more what we make of it than what it makes of us. Of course, there are circumstances that arise over which we have no control, but the truth is that we control a great deal more of our lives than we are usually willing to admit.

Take the weather. Mark Twain is credited with saying, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Correction, this quote is actually attributed to Charles Dudley Warner, a writer and good friend of Twain’s. Regardless who is attributed the quote, the fact remains that we can either complain about the weather, or accept it as just another fact of life. If it snows, we shovel and enjoy the blanket of white hiding all the earth’s imperfections. If it rains, we appreciate the fact that we don’t have to shovel. We don’t control the weather but we do control how we react to it.

Going into 2023, we can look at the year with anticipation and excitement or trepidation and dread. We have a choice. Annually, I compose my New Year’s Resolutions, which I could easily retitle, “My List of Yearly Failures.” Like most people, I frame my list of resolutions more as aspirational goals than true resolve. By the end of January, half of my resolutions have been jettisoned to the failure side of life’s ledger sheet. This year, I am trying something different and I encourage you to do the same.  I am going to interject the single syllable “yet.”

• I haven’t lost those ten pounds…..yet!
• I didn’t read that History of the World….yet!
• I haven’t planned a vacation….yet!

You can make the list anything you want, just add “yet.” “Yet” redefines everything. It lends hope where there is frustration. It lends potential where there is surrender.  It opens horizons where there is gloom. Yet is the secret to happiness.

Try it. This year, introduce “yet” into your vocabulary. If you haven’t “yet” done so, you still have the chance to do it. Yet – the most empowering word in the English language.