Feel good, it’s a new year!

The new year is all about hope. The hope that life could get better and will certainly be better gets you out of bed in the morning faster than an alarm clock can.

But sometimes, as we close our eyes to make a wish on New Year’s Eve or in front of our birthday cake, at the Fontana de Trevi or by a wishing well, we forget that what we have right now is already good, and is as good as it gets. We just don’t realize it.

As I write this, As Good as it Gets is showing on cable TV, and no matter how many times I’ve seen the Academy-award winning movie starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, I still feel good long after the movie’s final credits fade out from my TV screen. The movie shows how imperfect people can end up being perfectly happy. Not all the time, but especially during the times when other people need their perfection – their unique traits and characteristics – to go on.

For those who have missed the movie, As Good as it Gets is all about three dysfunctional, seemingly hard-luck people who find hope, redemption and the key to a better life in the most unlikely people – each other. Melvin (Nicholson) is an obsessive-compulsive book author, a grumpy middle-aged man who was once thrown out of a diner because he was rude to one of its waitresses. Carol (Hunt) is a harassed single mother who can’t even enjoy a Friday-night date because of a perpetually sick child (who barfs just as things get romantic with her and her date). Simon is a homosexual artist disowned by his parents and beaten, almost to death, by his so-called friends.

Now, how could three such characters make for a feel-good movie? Well, either you catch the movie again on HBO or run to your nearest DVD suki. It’s a good way to start your new year. It will make you want to wish for more without taking from you the joy of knowing that what you already have isn’t so bad at all. In fact, it’s "as good as it gets."

I always want to freeze the moment when Carol virtually orders Melvin to pay her a compliment (or she walks out of their dinner date) and he tells her, "You make me want to be a better man." (Former President Cory Aquino always says that a sign that a relationship is good is when the people in it "bring out the best in each other.")

The movie also makes us realize why people are drawn to each other, why a person who truly loves you and appreciates you seems to be wearing the only pair of laser eyeglasses in town – he/she sees something in you that others don’t and he/she loves you for what he/she sees.

Again, one of my favorite moments is when Melvin, who can’t seem to say "I love you" to Carol except in a roundabout way, tells her (give or take a few words, if my memory serves me right): "I am the only person that knows you have the qualities that make you the greatest woman on earth. The thought that people miss that and that I get it makes me feel good about me."

It’s when we get it – when we realize it – that life is good is when life is really good.

* * *

Life doesn’t have to be perfect for it to be good. One of the best self-help books I’ve read is Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson, Ph.D. For the holidays, I received a condensed version of his book, entitled Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (A Special Selection for Mothers), from RJ and Frannie Jacinto. Chapter 1 is entitled "Make Peace with Imperfection."

Inspired by the Melvins, Carols and Simons of this world, I share excerpts of the chapter with you: 

The need for perfection and the desire for inner tranquility conflict with each other. Whenever we are attached to having something a certain way, better than it already is, we are, almost by definition, engaged in a losing battle. Rather than being content and grateful for what we have, we are focused on what’s wrong with something and our need to fix it.

Carlson says that though we do realize "that while there’s a better way to do something, this doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy and appreciate the way things already are. Gently remind yourself that life is okay the way it is, right now."

Carlson believes that, "when you eliminate your need for perfection in all areas of your life, you’ll begin to discover the perfection in life itself."

It happened in the movies, it happens all the time, in real life.

* * *

  My high school classmates (Anay Mayoralgo-Zalamea, Marga Viaplana-Gregorio, Gia Suter-Nakpil, Lisa Mapua, Aissa Barrera-Cojuangco, Andie Recto- Montenegro and a schoolmate Marissa Picornell) and I recently had a post-Christmas reunion to welcome our Europe-based classmates Maite Duarte and Teresina Liboro, who were home for the holidays. Over dinner hosted by Margarita Liboro-Delgado, elder sister of Teresina, we talked about how far we’ve gone since graduating from high school in 1979, and how lucky we are to still be part of each other’s journeys. I haven’t seen Maite since 1979 – she lives in Barcelona with her Spanish husband Ricardo Pastor and their three kids Andy, Sofia and Edu. She lives a full and fulfilling life (juggling home and career and still managing to keep her high school figure). Same with Teresina, who lives in Copenhagen with her Danish husband Claus Liljeberg and two sons Stefan and Andreas. She, too, juggles home and career and manages to go to the gym almost every day! And to think these ladies have no live-in maids to help in their juggling act!

During the dinner, where we enjoyed Middle Eastern delicacies from Kashmir and good wine, I was seated beside Marga Gregorio, who really was once my seatmate in our senior year. In a way, she continues to be by my side today, never failing to text me whenever she has enjoyed reading my column. That’s what friends are – cheerleaders for each other.

We are now in our early forties, and one of our classmates, Marilou Rebollido-Reyes, just had a baby boy. We drank to that, too.

Christmas, the new year and friendship. This is as good as it gets, even if the best is yet to come!

* * *

You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com