One of the elements in my personal liturgy is a reading of the following passage every January 1st. I must have begun the practice in the mid-70s.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book Four, #276, tr. Kaufmann:
For the new year. -- I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. Today everybody permits himself the expression of his wish and his dearest thought: hence I, too, shall say what it is that I wish from myself today, and what was the first thought to run across my heart this year -- what thought shall be for me the reason, warranty, and sweetness of my life henceforth. I want to learn to see more and more as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all and all and on the whole: someday I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.
Nietzsche found it very difficult to let looking away be his only negation. And so shall I.
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