One of the best quotes I’ve come across in a long time—in two diverse venues—is from the writer Maria Robinson, who said: “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

This seems an appropriate way to start the first blog post of the new year, don’t you think?

Robinson’s quote also gave me pause. I had always thought that my remarriage represented a New Beginning, but perhaps that way of thinking has me coming down too hard on myself. At life’s midpoint, it does seem daunting, if not downright exhausting, to Start Over. Maybe it’s just useful semantics (my cockamamie tendency to be unusually susceptible to language), but when I begin to recalibrate my perspective as that of making a new ending rather than a new beginning, I do believe I can actually feel some of the pressure roll off my back.

Ah, the hopefulness of a new year.

While we’re on the subject of new endings, I want to share with you some more wonderful insights that fought their way to the surface of all the tinsel and glitter of the season. They’re from a terrific article, “30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself,” and I want to give a shout out to the blog Marc and Angel Hack Life for being awesome. Here’s the top 10 from their list of 30. As resolutions go, these are pretty extraordinary.

1. Stop spending time with the wrong people.
2. Stop running from your problems.
3. Stop lying to yourself.
4. Stop putting your own needs on the back burner.
5. Stop trying to be someone you’re not.
6. Stop trying to hold onto the past.
7. Stop being scared to make a mistake.
8. Stop berating yourself for old mistakes.
9. Stop trying to buy happiness.
10. Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness.

There are 20 more of these, and many other articles on their blog that will make you stop and think. But before you go, and while I’ve got you thinking about new endings and old behaviors to stop, would you like to share one of your own resolutions in the comment section? What’s the one thing you’d like to stop doing this year? Or better yet, what’s the one ending you’d like to make new?

Happy New Year.