New Year’s resolutions – Tis the season for them and who am I to miss out on a good bandwagon? I’m jumping on to add my own thoughts. They’re in seven bite-size chunks. Just like GCSE revision. How considerate of me.
- I don’t think I’ve ever had a New Year’s resolution before. I’ve never seen the appeal “Oh! January! What have I been doing with my life?! I’d better start growing that beard/eating food substitution products that look suspiciously like plastic and taste worse/raising a herd of endangered alpaca.” I don’t like resolutions because it feels too much like putting off what you should already be doing. Why aren’t you doing it now? Why wait until 1 January? But before I sound too fulfilled and this post starts looking a little too like a humblebrag––
- I suppose there are some things I have been wanting to do for a while and I was going to be getting to them anyway. After all I did only get back in the country four months ago and then I got a whole new job, town and flat a month later. I’m giving myself a break. Here goes:
- Stop killing things. Before you reach for the phone and start dialling 999 (or 911 or 110) I should tell you that I’m talking about plants. Or ‘victims’ as they’d probably call themselves. All of my previous plants did pretty badly out of the deal – as my friends and family would attest to – usually opting to suicide themselves before the year was out, but I feel like 2015 is a turning point. They’ll make my flat look nice and increase the oxygen floating about. Or something. Maybe I’ll get a Japanese peace lily. So on the drive back to Suffolk this weekend I’ll be stopping by a garden centre to pick up some new victi– sorry, plants.
- Get back to my website. Well you’re reading this so maybe there’s something about this whole resolution thing after all. Wow. Who knew it was so easy? To be fair there are a number of excellent reasons as to why I haven’t made it back on sooner: I got a job (which was the main purpose I had for making this site in the first place); I was without internet for 6 weeks (because communications industry giants Sky and BT Openreach don’t actually know how to communicate); I spilt tea on my poor computer and had to wait quite a while for it to be fixed.
- So that’s two resolutions and I’ve run out already. Oh! How about “have fewer tabs open on my browser at once”? I’ve got 35 open at the moment. Seems a little excessive. [Luckily I now have Pocket, which is totally saving me. That and Clef and Two Dots are my favourite apps of 2014].
- Pay for things. I bitched on Twitter recently about how unimpressed I am with Netflix. The truth is there’s a lot of amazing free stuff out there but it’s important to pay your way where you can, which is why I bought two amazing cushions from the artist Zandra Rolfe last year and will hopefully do more this year too.
- On second thought, I do have lots I want to do in 2015. But I want to do them in spite of resolutions. I was totally going to do them anyway. Honestly. I’m going to channel my inner hipster and get properly into knitting – now that Secret Santa has provided – and carry on with Sewing Club thanks to my recent Hobbycraft bargain.
So maybe I do have some resolutions. But they’re for life. Not just for New Year.
If you’re looking to take your resolutions seriously then head over to Brain Pickings – a site I’ve cited before and will continue to do so until it gets incredibly annoying – where Maria Popova has re-posted a timely piece on research into making things stick.
*also: more exercise, more ‘me’ time, more sleep, more friend time, more creativity time, learn to meditate (again), more more more…
Image credit: Vector Club