FeelGooder has been online for a couple of months now, and since it’s also the start of a brand new year (and decade!) I thought I’d ask you:

What’s one thing you want to feel better about this year?

…and how can FeelGooder help?

I’d like to feel better about my seat-of-the-pants, off-the-cuff, swings-and-roundabouts-style financial state in 2011.

It’s not that my finances are a shambles; it’s more that I never seem to know what’s coming, so my income and expenditure is all a bit random, which makes saving something of a challenge.

Wanting to get on top of it, and to know where I’m heading financially, seems a lot like an idle dream right now, but I’m pretty sure the good people in the FeelGooder community have a wealth (haha!) of experience and advice to share on finance, planning, and managing money.

What do you want to feel better about in 2011?

It’s the last day of the year! Today, we’re asking:

What made you feel good in 2010?

One thing that made me feel pretty amazing in 2010 was the birth of my nephew.

He’s the first grandchild for my parents, and he was born while my 95-year-old grandfather was still alive and kicking—and ecstatic to have a great-grandson.

We have a fabulous photo of my nephew, sister, mother, and grandfather together, and like most family photos, it says a lot. The photo tells of battles fought and lost, burdens shouldered, concessions made, and rifts healed. It says the unthinkable can be made real. When I look at it, I tell myself: if this is reality, then perhaps anything is possible. That’s a pretty good feeling.

What about you? What made you feel good in 2010?

For those celebrating Christmas, it’s may seem a bit of a loaded question, but regardless of what you’re planning for the days ahead, we’re curious:

What’s going to make you feel good this weekend?

This weekend marks the proper start of my holidays. And I plan to spend a large portion of them here:

To me, Christmas means time off: time to relax, catch up with family and friends, and recharge the batteries. The hammock is the ideal place to take time out.

We live in the country, far from the burnished beaches that the Australian summer is supposedly all about, and the hammock reminds us of the great things we have right here on our doorstep. Also, there’s something decadent about luxuriating in the wilderness like this: it seems to fly in the face of—and let us appreciate—all the hard work we have to do through the year to keep the place livable.

But lying in the hammock on holiday really encapsulates the reasons we moved to the country: for the connection to the environment, to enjoy the space, and to have more time to relax. When I’m on holidays and in the hammock, all those dreams are fulfilled.

That’s me. But what’s going to make you feel good this weekend?

We all have bad days. I’ve had a couple just this week, so I thought I’d ask you guys for your thoughts…

What’s your favorite bad-day antidote?

I have a few bad-day antidotes: lounging in the bath with a Martini, eating an ice-cream, going for a bike-ride. If the day’s a real doozy, I usually end up getting to the point where I realize, “Oh, today’s actually ridiculous. Nothing’s going to work. Okay then. I won’t take anything seriously until tomorrow.”

But my favorite bad-day antidote is spending time in my garden.

As you can see, my garden is a long way from the house, and it has some pretty fantastic views. Something about being out there changes my perspective slightly—it’s easier to feel distanced from my troubles, and to focus on what’s good.

There are plenty of good things in the garden: small things growing, big things ready to eat, weird insects, birds, and little, determined, indigenous plants happily coexisting with the broccoli and lettuces. My hens are nearby, the forest stands, green and still, just over the garden fence, and since we live on a hill, the sky feels almost close enough to touch.

The garden presents all sorts of paradoxes: it’s seasonal, yet it persists; it promotes growth through decay; it is at once still and a hive of activity. Ultimately, it’s calm and calming, and on even the worst days, the garden restores me—it makes me feel good again.

Tell me: what’s your favorite bad-day antidote?

Another week has passed. Today, we want to know:

Who did you help this week? And how?

This week, I helped a friend of mine get motivated to get back into running. After an ankle injury, he was hesitant to go running again … until I told him this story about a friend of mine.

Recently, I went on a fundraising bike ride with some friends, one of whom is in the process of trying to lose weight through various lifestyle changes. After the 50km bike ride, I found that running became a lot easier for me. I’ve been running for ten years, but suddenly, I felt like superwoman! When I told my friend with the weight loss goals, he looked at me wryly, smiled, and said, “Well, obviously, you just weren’t pushing yourself hard enough.”

Touche. And too right. Who knew that a little extra effort could make such a big difference? Everyone but me, apparently.

When I told this story to my friend with the bad ankle, he laughed, but this week, he wrote to tell me it had inspired him to get out and go running—and he’d done 5km and felt great. This guy is pretty hard-core about the physical fitness, so I was ecstatic to think that I’d inspired him (through my laziness, no less!) to make the little extra effort that went a long way for him.

I don’t remember him saying he felt like superwoman, though.

It’s corny but true: helping people feels good! Who did you help this week, and how?

Welcome to our first FeelGooder discussion. At the end of every week, we’ll post a question here specifically for discussion with you.

Today, we’re asking this question:

What’s one thing you’ve learned this week?

To get the ball rolling, let me volunteer something I’ve learned this week. I’ve learned that I love doing things that have a lasting, tangible result. I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, like volunteering for charity or working for a cause.”

No. I’m talking about hobbies. I’m talking about learning to use a chainsaw. Let me explain.

As a writer—and a digital writer at that—practically everything I output is intangible and transient. Each thing I produce spends a few brief days on the homepage of a site before it’s gone. Even personal writing projects are digital, not “real”—they’re stored electronically. My work is intangible.

But over the last year I’ve been learning (by necessity) to use a chainsaw. Some bad weather this week saw me chopping up a tree that had fallen across my road with a swiftness and precision I’d never hoped—let alone expected—to achieve. In the beginning, a tree blocked the road. About an hour later, I had a nice wall of firewood stacked in the shed.

The satisfaction this brought me was surprising. Here was something I had done. Every time I look out the window and see that wood, I feel a surge of accomplishment: I can see what I did. It’s a small thing—a simple thing—but it makes me feel good.

Having learned how satisfying I find doing things that have a lasting, tangible outcome, I’m now considering pursuing other interests that produce concrete physical results. I didn’t realise how much that mattered to me until now.

That’s it for me. What have you learned this week?