The first days of January are often the occasion to take stock and to set targets for the coming months. The experiences of 2011 certainly part of a continuum, but they are for me a passage towards a new stage.

The year ended badly. My wife broke her hip and we spent New Year in hospital. Her recovery will take time and it is now my main concern. But this does not stop me from planning my next activities, both to carry on my mandates as consultant and to write the next chapters of my memories.

These two points are the backbone of my goals for 2012:

- Completing the writing of my story

- maintaining contact with all my clients and continue to be useful

Probably, I will spend more time in 2012 for my health as my age begins more and more to play tricks on me.

I increasingly tend to forget the following day what I did the day before. I am obliged to note all the appointments that I made, summaries of my conversations, the decisions I made, the proceedings of my interviews. I came to keep a diary of my professional work, for fear of forgetting an important detail of my activities.

On the other side, I remember more and more of a crowd of details from my distant past. I see myself again at any age in my life and flashbacks of my last 80 years have become a pleasure that I offer myself with ease.

Without going into detail, all scientists will tell youthat the brain stores its information in two ways:

Working memory or short-term memory (STM) is an active memory system that deals with both the treatment and maintenance of immediate short-term information.

Long-term memory (LTM) is the memory which contains memories of personal events experienced. However, it is paradoxical. We have the impression to better remember the experiences but the reverse is true. In fact, events are not relived,but rebuilt. So the emotions which bring back to life the memories can change our memories of the past.

The diagnosis of my condition is therefore very easy : my lack of short-term memory is balanced by an increase in my long-term memory. My memory lives on in my dreams, in the hundreds of documents and photos from my archives, in the stories of survivors as old as me.

Reviewing the past, resume all its elements, subject them to a judgment as objective as possible, asking the fundamental question "did I do good or wrong" is not an easy task. As I said already in a previous blog : "I think I will be both the judge and the accused". I dont care the judgments of others. I'm too old for that.

The main point for the coming year will be to bring judge and accused to share the same opinion about the past and about the future.

I am who I am. I have to accept the contingencies of my age. I'm not afraid of the future. I am glad to live and the sun is also shining for me.