Here we are, a few weeks into 2013, and many of us are already burdened with ill-fated resolutions, intentions that, while well meaning and valuable, we have already veered away from in our busy-ness, lack of follow through and simple lack of time. Perhaps the dawning of a new year also allows us the opportunity to approach this beginning in a more productive way. Rather than resolutions, promises or efforts to change, to leave behind fruitless endeavors or to embark on healthier habits, how would our worlds shift if we chose instead to just BE? At risk of exposing my inner hippie, I propose that learning (or more accurately, RE-learning: just look at any being in infancy or toddlerhood)how to grow comfortable in BEING in the world could provide us with as many opportunities to heal, grow and transform as the loftiest resolutions ever could. Mindfulness may well be the latest term to ignite the fire of many health care professionals, but the word smacks of “expertise”, a certain level of psychological and spiritual evolution that seems off-putting to bungling, messy, cro-magnon beings like myself. I rather like the playfulness, the no-expectations flavor of the word BE. Surely, every breath we take proves we have the skills to BE, right? Our senses are the only keys to unlocking the door to the domain of BE-ness. Who hasn’t benefitted from a deep breath before a heavy conversation? Who hasn’t lost themselves in a belly-aching laughing fit reading the Top 25 AutoCorrects of 2012 postings (and don’t make it seem like I’m the only one! You know you love those!) Who hasn’t, at least once, followed the trail of a raindrop down a windowpane, marvelling at the drops’ inevitable melding with another streak of rain? Who is to say that these moments are not sacred, not of the same stuff as moments of psychic or spiritual stretching, of effort and sacrifice and resistance? Knowledge and wisdom are available from the most unlikely sources. How delightful would it be to embrace all we can learn from the simplest acts of life– a breath, a touch, the “sight” of a thought as it tumbles through our brain, only to evaporate like steam in the vastness of our minds. I feel a peace when I contemplate BE-ing, a peace devoid of pressure and striving and trying. The lazy person’s way out? Maybe. But I feel a smile grace my face at the anticipation of lowering my head to my pillow, smelling the scent of my love’s perfume on the linen, the coolness of the cloth against my cheek, savoring the heaviness of my lids as they promise near-sleep, and know that I’ll take peace any day of the week, any way it chooses to show itself to me.