I just want to write and be warm
For the last several years, I’ve struggled to make New Years’ resolutions. A friend once blew my mind when he said he never makes them, subscribing instead to the Yoda philosophy: Do or do not. There is no trying to make New Year’s resolutions.
I have so much. I’m happy. What more do I need a New Year’s resolution to strive for? Also, I don’t really lack for motivation. If I wanted to write a novel, climb a volcano, swim with sharks, or bike a 100 miles, I’d just… do it. What’s the point of a resolution?
There’s also a lot of pressure around starting a new year off on the right foot. Which, in my case, tends to go rather poorly. On New Year’s Day, I’m usually tired from the previous night, nursing an injury, lacking open restaurants, or dealing with travel nonsense, and feeling overwhelmed at the thought of writing something amazing and creative to the point of not being able to write anything at all. Today I stepped in dog poop on the way to breakfast. The good news is my day only went up from there.
I’ve been thinking about how we’ve been conditioned to keep striving for something, as if the life we want to live is perpetually somewhere around the corner, if we only keep trying harder. Maybe it’s the promise of retirement, except what would we even do with retirement except look for new things to strive for?
I just want to write and be warm. Any day that I can do both of those things is a Good Day, and a Great Year is just a collection of Good Days. I wrote about 1,000 words today. It’s not a lot. But it’s not nothing. It’s 1,000 words more than I had written yesterday. And I managed to get into a thermal bath. It’s going to be a great year.
Photo: New Year’s Day over the Navigli, Milan.