I won’t deny it. 2011 was a terrible, engrossing, heart-breaking, soul-shaking (I hear a song coming), wonderfully challenging year. But we can always choose to make sense of the things that happen to us by…making life lesson lists.

So. Here’s what I learned last year:

1. Your mind trumps the universe. If you don’t think it does, you’re not thinking about it hard enough.
2. Being single but happy trumps being taken but sad. That said, happy relationships trump both.
3. Talking to strangers can only be good. Seriously. Try it. Worst case is getting ignored but that hardly ever happens unless you actually expect to be ignored. If you don’t believe this, consult #1.
4. Writing helps. Even for the non-writers. There’s something, they say, about the finality and tangibility of the written word (probably hard-wired) that turns dreams into goals, trauma into mere unfortunate anecdotes from your past, and worries into actionable stuff you can get over with.
5. Your attention is your currency. There are a billion things that can occur to you at any single moment: from benign observations about your immediate surrounding to inspired realizations about your place in the world. Don’t squander your thoughts.
6. Each moment is a platform of possibility. The truth is that life-changing decisions are made in split seconds. You may think your habits dictate your actions, but for that consult #1.
7. You really have a choice about what you call yourself. Don’t pick the first thing that comes to mind. Choose wisely.
8. If you don’t find time to figure out what you want to do with your life, someone else will do it for you. This is never, ever fun.
9. You will screw up. You will. You really will. You’re not perfect. You will screw it up in small ways, you will screw it up in major, mind-blowing, what-the-hell-was-I-thinking ways, but the truth is it will only hurt now. Next year you will forget this. If you don’t, consult #1.
10. Create a system that will allow you to capture ideas, notes, to dos wherever you happen to be. Great ideas occur anywhere. Don’t lose them. I have Grade 4 notepads everywhere and my iPod Touch for sudden bursts of inspiration. They have, more than once, brought me out of writing slumps and life slumps.
11. You learn things by doing. There is no shortcut. I’ve been thinking about writing more than I’ve actually been writing, and now that I’m writing there are wonders I never knew when I was just formulating and brainstorming and making mind maps. Dive right in. It will be fun.