#31
I love year-end reflections and new year’s resolutions. This morning I realised that for the past three years, I really have been successful with my resolutions, which gives me a lot of hope for the coming year. One year I decided to stop hoarding things so much – ordering books that remain untouched on my shelves, saving browser tabs that I don’t look at for months on end, taking screenshots of things to revisit later, and so on. It led to a major digital cleanse, and life is simpler when I don’t keep piling my to-do list with unnecessary and non-urgent tasks (and myself with impossible expectations). The next year, I stopped believing in astrology. It’s good to free myself of the person I’m supposed to be, and free my days of what they’re supposed to be like. This past year, I tried (truly and with all my might), to reduce overthinking. I believe there has been growth, and loved ones will attest to this. It is easier now to distinguish between reasonable thoughts and fears/anxieties that leave me feeling stuck and paralytic.
In the coming year, what I want is to be clearer about my priorities and honour them. This will challenge my self-esteem and require a lot of discipline in several arenas. And I want to beware of telling myself the wrong stories. For instance, a few days after sending the previous issue (#30), I realised with great relief that the pessimism in the writing was the natural result of certain specific unexpected provocations, and not a fundamental change in my disposition, as I had feared. While writing this, I feel grounded—even as everything necessarily remains uncertain. Trying to make peace with uncertainty appears to be a lifelong project—and I remain hopeful.
I don’t have much else to say today – please join me in admiring the Statue of Ali and Nino in Georgia, and Ocean (1920-30) by Michalis Economou.
