In the spirit of the New Year and as a reflection of the human desire to rise to the moral occasion, here is a list of 45 suggestions to become a little more devoted to timeless principles in our ongoing effort at becoming a better person in 2012.

Guest Post by Stuart Mills of Unlock the Door: Ever felt like things were so bad you had no idea what to do? We’ve all been in situations where we worried that the very worst possible thing that could happen was going to happen, even when evidence suggested it wouldn’t. Sometimes these ‘worst-case scenarios’ actually take place. But more often than not, they appear in only one place – our minds.

I’ve been a high school teacher for about a decade now. I’ve been touched by the number of students who have shared their personal histories, both successes and heart aches, some of them gut-wrenching. But I’ve learned some valuable lessons about life along the way. Here, I present four of them.

Life has a way of hitting us upside the head at unexpected moments. Sometimes we stumble. Other times we fall and struggle to get back up again. Some people never do. Battered by circumstance, they become bitter and angry or depressed and despondent. An indescribable ache fills their hearts. A cloudy haze drapes their minds in indifference to anything but their own pain. Even their souls seem to become worn, ragged, ripped and broken. Others, however, seem to bounce back relatively quickly. There are reasons for that difference.

Obsession is a lot like holding a flame in your hand. It is powerful and can produce the heat of passion and power and drive. But it can also consume and destroy. The trick is to keep the flame burning without succumbing to the temptation to aim the heat too exclusively at a single target. But to be obsessed with life is to be obsessed with making use of every moment, of appreciating the ebb and flow of living. I recommend 6 obsessions here that can improve your life and make 2012 an amazing year.

Have you ever seen someone you couldn’t keep your eyes off? And then, after getting to know them a bit, you wonder why you ever found them sexy in the first place? Have you had the opposite experience where you didn’t find someone sexy UNTIL you got to know them? There is a sexiness more profound than shape and form. It’s a sexiness or person, of personality and character. In a word, it is the sexiness of happiness.

Do you struggle to make sense of life? Does happiness seem fleeting and distant? Is emotional pain eating you from the inside? Read my interview with Lori Deschene of Tiny Buddha and see why her site has such a huge following! Also, participate in a free hardcover giveaway of Lori’s new book, “Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions! Two books will be given out. Come see what all the buzz is about!

Has Christmas and the holidays lost some of the depth and meaning you remember it having in the past? Make Christmas once again feel like it did when you were young. Add meaning and purpose to your Christmas celebrations as you try one or two of the best tips provided here. And then share what you do to add significance to a significant holiday.

Second in an ongoing feature here, excerpts from comments left by readers are used to introduce topics. My readers comments are about as eloquent and insightful and pithy as the most famously quoted. Come see what I mean and discover the passion to live higher and bolder, taking action in your life to build something out of the clay of your life that will be richly rewarding, deeply happy and profound.

Every choice, and thought and action, our habits, ideas, interpretations, assumptions and attitudes all combine to create an unmistakable trajectory for our lives. They point us down a particular path. Our beliefs create the context within which we think and interpret and assume and act. To change our lives, we must change our beliefs: what we believe is possible, what we believe is important, what we believe about ourselves and about life.

Does your life matter? Do you have worth? Is life meaningful? What you believe about you, about who you are and what you can do and what limitations there are on you will largely determine how your life plays out. To change the outcome of your life, change the beliefs you have about it. Some beliefs will weigh you down. Others will free you to rise. Which beliefs do you have?

We are all thankful for things like family, friends, health, freedom, happiness and the like. But what of the more ordinary and mundane? Do we think of such things when we count our blessings? The more we fill our awareness with gratitude, the happier life will be.

What you believe about life, yourself, what matters most in life, determines how you live, what you do, how you think, what you value. Belief creates reality. The Truth is constant, but our interpretations of it are not. For deep personal change to stick, beliefs must be questioned and replaced. How you live is a direct result of what you believe.

I never thought I’d write a post on any aspect of blogging. You see, blogging is the vehicle by which I convey ideas I believe can change lives. But my passion is for the ideas rather than the particular vehicle used to convey them. But as I thought about it, words are the tools of the trade of communicating those ideas. So when a fellow blogger asked me to write a post about how I write, I decided to give it a go.

My readers are amazing! Come in and eat at the buffet of wisdom and insight they provide as I launch this first in an on-going series of posts where I use quotable excerpts from comments left on posts I’ve published here at M2bH to introduce topics that will inspire and motivate, enlighten and instruct us all on our shared journey to living better, happier, more rewarding and fulfilling lives.

What thoughts do you allow on the stage of your mind? Thoughts are powerful things that shape our lives and largely determine our futures. They create the foundation on which our lives are built and the quality of the material used to build them. So what is the quality of your thoughts?

We fear losing it as we age. We take supplements to boost it. We buy books and listen to programs to improve it. But memory can also work against us, tying us to old beliefs, daily ratifying suspicions of self-doubt. In such cases, memory becomes insidious, eating away like tiny incessant termites gnawing at the structure of our lives. But you can stop that process beginning today. Come see!

I’m seriously considering changing the name of my blog. Have I outgrown a blog on happiness? What do you think? I deeply value my reader’s opinions. I have always paid great attention to what you have shared in the comments and am now hoping you will help me decide what direction to take now. Ultimately, the balls in my court, of course. But I value your input and am hoping to tap it.

There are saying that have become integrated into the human psyche. We accept them as truth. “A penny saved is a penny earned” or “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Such words and phrases eloquently capture time-honored wisdom. But other sayings can imprison potential and undermine possibility as we accept them at face value. Come see which phrases you’ve used recently!

Many bloggers today will tell you that you are perfect, complete and good enough as is. Is that true? Are you a project that has been finished, the last brush stroke dried, the canvas of your life complete, ready to be hung on a wall? Or is there more work to be done? If so, does that mean you’re not really good enough yet? And what does being good enough really mean anyway? And does it matter? Click on in. The answers may surprise you!