Take time this year to enjoy the pleasure of simply being alive

HAPPY New Year! How was it for you? Did you see out 2017 in style, wake up to 2018 and go out for a morning run to get those resolutions under way?

Or, like me, did your husband succumb to the flu-like virus doing the rounds and pass it on to you, confining you to the sofa watching The Crown series two and eating roasted peanuts?

It’s impossible to keep to resolutions when you’re ill. Healthy eating, exercise and early spring cleaning are all non-starters.

But now I’m dusting myself off and thinking about what I’d like to change in 2018.

Short-term (preferably within a day or two), I’d like to know once more what day of the week it is.

I’d like to eat something remotely healthy — who knows, maybe even green.

Longer-term, I’d like not to worry so much. I’ve never counted myself as a worrier, yet it struck me while simultaneously worrying about my resolutions, how much coffee I’d drunk and my gluttony over Christmas, that, well, I really am.

You might share this trait of being anxious or over-thinking.

Feeling guilt that the house could look better. Guilt about working away from home.

Guilt about not nailing the daily to-do list. Guilt about not going on that run four times a week. Or even once. Guilt about seeing yourself on telly in a rear shot that made you wince.

All this guilt and fretting is entirely useless. A waste of energy that means we are not living in the moment.

And what else is there? You can worry about something in the past — but it’s been and gone.

You can worry about the future — but it’s not happened and might never.

The only thing that exists is the moment we’re in — a catch-up with a pal or playing with the kids.

Sometimes I miss the joyous pleasure of being alive because I’m thinking about other things.

So, while I want to help others, be a better mum, wife, daughter, sister and friend, it’s all got to start with being in the here and now — and working at being happier ourselves.

May 2018 be your best yet.