Happy New Year!   

I love January 1st.   I roll out of bed, ignore the piles of laundry, and putter about, thinking of the promise of another brand-spanking-new year.

I’m not so great at resolutions.   Last year I made a resolution to start training to run my first marathon, only to find out that I actually despise running.   I’m not so great at predictions either, either I don’t trust my intuitions enough or I rationalize my way into trusting ones that I don’t have.

So for 2009, I am going to stick to a simple wish for you and your loved ones:   may you wake up each day inspired.   Perhaps you want to improve your health, your parenting skills, the environment, or your linen closet.    Perhaps you want to save a life, save a puppy, communicate your brand, or make sure that your charitable contributions are money well spent.    Perhaps you want to find a better balance in life, learn to relax, or take up a new hobby. 

So we urge you:  throw off the heavy yoke of “should” and “must”!   Put on the light and fluid robe of motivation.   Find the people, places or things that inspire you the most and hold them close to your heart.   Stick their pictures on the inside of your closet door, start a journal, make a collage with your kids.   It may not come easily, it may come in fits and bursts, but allow inspiration to breathe life and meaning into everything you do, and to inform your imagination, your strategies, and your actions. 

As we continue our mission of tackling low breastfeeding continuation rates in the U.S.-a seemingly intractable social problem with devastating health, environmental and economic consequences-we find that the thing that keeps us going most is inspiration.   It’s the kind of thing that if you ask for it, it will find you.

So as we close 2008 and start 2009, we thank YOU for inspiring us . . . we couldn’t do it without you!