Well, it’s the start of a New Year – as if that wasn’t obvious by the huge plethora of NY resolutions threads floating around.
To me, a NYR is a waste of time. Why should you start to do something at the new year, particularly? If you want to start a new regime, lose some weight, write more, send out more submissions, whatever, start it as soon as you think of it. Making it a NYR means that there’s more pressure to continue doing it when your heart just isn’t in it, or whether other aspects of your life make it difficult.
And then, of course, there’s the added aspect of many NYRs being made whilst under the influence of alcoholic substances. Made with the best of intentions, sure, but in the cold, hard, headache-filled light of day, you begin to realise that your resolutions were overly ambitious, at best, and perhaps darned impossible at worst.
I prefer to look forward to this time next year – what will I have achieved over the year? Will it have been a good year, a bad year, a sad year, a disastrous year? A year filled with euphoria, or with abject misery, or something in between?
As I get older, simply being around this time next year will be a great thing, and some achievement. Some things I wanted to achieve will have been, and no doubt some won’t have been. But the secret to a happy life is to go forward, achieving some ‘smart targets’, with some preparation and expectation of not achieving all of them.
I hope everyone I care for has a safe year, at least, and that there are at least some aspects of it that can be considered enjoyable. Everything else is a bonus!
