Tag: New Year

Into the New Year

What is there to say at the beginning of a new year? Resolutions, promises, hopes, plans? Yes, all of these and more. But most of all, there’s the joy of simply looking over the calendar and seeing all those days spread out before you.

I have a tendency to rush through things, to complete projects for the sake of completion. January 1st is a good day to consider that this isn’t as important as taking time to enjoy each season. Maybe that’s a bit trite, a bit cliche, but there’s truth in it. A year isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things. Best to appreciate each day, both the happy surprises and the obnoxious challenges, because they don’t come around again.

Whether I’m gritting my teeth or smiling happily, each day is a gift and a privilege. Best not to rush through any of them.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Face-to-Face in an Age of Long-Distance Technology

I’m an introvert by nature. I like being alone. Being isolated holds no real terror for me. Sure, it can be a bit monotonous at times, but I have a knack for finding ways to amuse myself. All in all, I enjoy being by myself. And in today’s word of Zoom meetings and work-from-home job schedules, I have more time to myself then ever. Most of us do. Heck, the Internet has made in-person interaction almost a secondary social trait.

That being said, I will never decry the importance – the essentiality – of physically being with friends.

I recently celebrated New Year’s with a group of close friends. We spent the night playing board games and laughing at each other’s corny jokes. Not being a social butterfly, such events are relatively rare for me, which makes them all the sweeter. Being with people is fun. And if I say that as if it’s some grand discovery, maybe that’s just the millennial in me talking.

We need people. Not just people’s words on social media, or their faces on the web camera. We need to be with people. Humans are social animals.

“Relationship” is a word that’s easy to bandy about. What other words are there to use to illustrate its complexity? Friendship. Camaraderie. Partnership. Sharing. Connecting. Time investment. Yup, relationships demand our time. Maybe a friendship in person is more precious because you sacrifice the time to be there in the flesh, rather than sit on your butt in front of your computer typing from a distance.

That New Year’s party was time well-spent. The spontaneity, the laughter, the jokes, the simple act of being there. It stirred memories of when that was commonplace for me. Maybe for all of us? Before the advent of social distancing. High school and college days where I hung out with friends during lunch and chatted with them throughout the week. Things that I took for granted. Ah, but hindsight is always bittersweet.

So, this New Year has gotten me thinking about the importance of in-person relationships. Writing is a solitary activity, and that means socializing is something I must seek elsewhere. I do have a social life, mind you, but perhaps I was starting to treat it a little too casually and valuing it a little less than I should have. We all need to see a living face every once in a while.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Image: “Forest” by tim_gorman; Licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

New Year’s Resolutions? I Resolve Not To!

New Year’s Day is a day famous for resolutions. The day when people work up the courage to swear to permanent change in their lives. To resolve to start doing this, stop doing that, and make some adjustments to these other things. A time for fresh starts.

Now, let’s be honest with ourselves. How many of you have ever kept a resolution all the way through the entire year? If you have, you have my deep and abiding respect. You are a rare breed.

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I defy this societal concept. No, I’m not being contrary for contrariness’s sake, I just don’t understand the need for it. Why wait until one day out of 365 (or 366) when you can always decide to change TODAY? That is, if you really want to improve yourself. Maybe it’s just more comfortable to say, as little orphan Annie sings, “There’s always tomorrow.” And tomorrow always seems to be such a long time coming.

That being said, it’s all well and good to come up with new goals on New Year’s Day. It’s tempting to look out across the vastness of the new year, all those blank days ripe with promise, and imagine to oneself how this time you’ll do it differently. You’ll be better this year, just wait and see. You make that silent resolution to yourself. On the same day, of course, when everyone parties hard till midnight and carouses and gets drunk and gets into car accidents. A hangover and a car repair bill. An excellent start to the new year.

Some people take resolutions very seriously. And to those people who can keep them throughout the year, I say more power to you. Like I already said, you are a rare breed. Most people make a few half-hearted mentions of a few things in life they want to be different, then forget all about it in a couple weeks (or a couple drinks).

Which isn’t to say that the idea behind New Year’s resolutions is a bad thing. We should always strive to improve ourselves. But maturity and growth is a gradual process, not something that happens in leaps and spurts. It takes a lot of effort to change something about ourselves. We stubbornly cling to bad habits and thoughts because they’ve stuck with us for so long. A single day of swearing off a habit isn’t going to make much difference. You got to work at it every day. You got to practice. Change is slow.

So, I don’t bother with New Year’s resolutions. Why should I, when I can make that resolution any day of the year? Sometimes, I make the same resolution multiple times in a week or a month, because I stumble. We all stumble, especially after making a big show of the big changes in our lives. Life likes to set us up like that. It’s like setting the cute baby seal free into the ocean with cameras rolling and – oh, there’s the shark waiting to spoil the moment.

I will make resolutions as many days as it takes to improve myself for the better and change my bad habits. No one-and-done deals. One day’s quick and easy promises aren’t enough.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Image: “Fireworks – Adelaide Skyshow 2010” by anthonycramp; Licensed under CC BY 2.0.