Another New Year is beginning, and as I look around the world and see things getting faster and faster, and more technology-driven, I often wonder what the coming decades have in store for us. Despite higher material wealth than ever before, we are unhappier, more tired and less healthy than recent generations. It is clear that something is broken in the way our society at large is living.
 
At this time of year, we often make resolutions for the year ahead. I love to spend a few days when it’s dark outside, and external obligations lessen for a short period, to reflect and set intentions and dreams for the future. I have long believed that manifesting the life we want to live starts by dreaming it and being clear what it looks like.
 
And yet, when we are told that we can do and be anything we like, we can fall into the trap of comparing our current life negatively with the future life we’d ideally be living. Setting a vision for the future can lead to frustration or negative feelings about the “now”.
 
And so it’s essential simultaneously to fully accept and embrace the now; for that is the only place we can become happy. No amount of external change in the future will make us happy if we haven’t learned that happiness is to be found on the inside and is already accessible right now, without any external change at all.
 
Happiness is to be found in the hundreds and thousands of tiny moments that make up every day – a beautiful sunrise, a kind gesture, a piece of music – and in recognition and gratitude for the comforts that we take for granted every day – food to eat, shelter from the storm, a safe place to be.
 
This year we hope that Eco Retreats will continue to be a sanctuary for those looking for some time out, to think, to re-set, to get away from the constant demands of our devices and just to rest in the beauty of our stunning, remote forest setting.