Happy New Year everyone!
What a relief! We are now in 2021, a brand new, clean and healthy year. Well, at least it will be for a few moments, maybe even a few days. Without a doubt 2020 scarred us for life. A year lost in time, a reminder of strange and troublesome events. A year that we all shared in common, no matter where we lived it. But that year is now gone!
As the stroke of midnight approached, we felt the relief of hope embracing us, as if everything has been cleansed, all the troubles have been resolved and the slate has been wiped clean. A new day, a new year, a new opportunity for all of us to achieve what we set out to achieve in life, a new opportunity in happiness, for everyone. Hope is an ingredient in abundance every New Year day, floating in the air and feeding our hearts and souls. We take it in without haste and we feed from it, and we raise our head a little bit higher, and we walk a little bit straighter, and our smile is a little bit easier. Some say it is the champagne and the wine, but I say it is hope.
What a better time that this day for New Year's resolutions! The slate is clean and there is a whole year to fulfil new achievements. We set goals for whatever we want to achieve and since it seems such a long way away, most of the time we are a bit too generous with our abilities. Being influenced by the optimism of the season, everything seems to be more easy to achieve, where we devise the impression that we are more disciplined than we actually are, and we are relying on the illusion that everything will go as planned. After all, what can possibly go wrong?
My list of resolutions for this year is quite short, and quite similar to the one I had last year. All the disruptions from last year, gave me plenty of excuses to deviate from my initial plan and although I ticked most of the boxes, I still fell a bit short. With life being as busy as it is, and with work occupying the lion's share of the day, there is not much time for someone to do anything else. So, this year I am starting my list with the knowledge that I can easily get distracted, but with the conviction that I want to make the most out of my limited free time:
Write every day.
I do not consider myself a writer but writing has been the most cleansing and rewarding exercise for me. It expresses my frustrations, it untangles my thoughts and it connects me with my inner feelings, emotions, and dark thoughts. Writing every day is my daily mental jog, and it usually involves everyday thoughts that storm my brain from every direction until they hit the paper where they are transformed into meaningful sentences, or at least for the most part.
Read 12 books.
Reading is my weapon against social media and time-wasting apps, my attempt to constructively use my free time and my desperate effort to catch-up with all the books in my bucket list. Being realistic with work and family obligations, I will be happy if I can read one book every month, thus the 12-book-goal.
Bring my weight under 90 kilos.
Now this is a sad story that everyone can relate. Getting older does not help my body and no matter how good or careful my diet is, my metabolism is not collaborating. Last time I remember I was under 90 kilos, I was 19 years old. With that in mind, losing 6 more kilos will not be easy, but it is definitely an achievable goal. Having a goal like that may be the only way to keep myself away from sweets and treats.
Run 600 kilometres.
Everyone that really knows me, knows how much I hate running. But running has become another pressure-release valve for my everyday life. Sure, it is boring. Sure, it is killing my knees. Sure, it is wet and cold and miserable. But with a little bit of music and a little bit of courage, it becomes a meditation-like exercise. So, for this year, I want to force myself to make 50 kilometres every month, which is ten times for 5 kilometres each time, which is not lot, really. But daily routine is a bitch. Daily routine takes hold of our lives and keeps us away from what we like and drags us to keep doing what we can barely tolerate. Thus, discipline, shoes, music and the open road for 600 kilometres in 2021.
Stay with basketball.
In 2019 I won a championship with the local men's team and started coaching young children, teaching them the fundamentals of basketball. In 2020, I continued playing and coaching until the season was disrupted by you-know-what. It took a lot of time, effort and pain to bring basketball back to my life, and although I am at the stage where my body does not necessarily agrees with what my mind wants, I am not ready to hang my shoes yet. So, I need to make the mental and physical effort to be present and share what I know with those that are eager to learn, and at the same time I want to stay connected with a great part of my life.
I realized that I have not mentioned anything about my work, my family, or my health. Resolutions are meaningful for those things that we chose to do or not to do. Those activities and achievements that are adding colour and sound to the film that that we live every day. There is nothing optional about work and family and health. They are the top priority and I will do everything in my power to keep them in good state so that we can continue our lives with dignity and potential.
New Year's resolutions are the personal challenges that will help us become better people, and will help us achieve more in life. They are the weapons that we choose to use against the exhausting grind of daily life. They are the tools that we choose to make us more efficient. They are the way to become fearless to the challenges of life. So the greatest and most important New Year's resolution should be:
Be Dauntless.
Show no fear to whatever life throws at us. Show determination to succeed and persevere in spite of all the obstacles and difficulties of our days. We hope for the new year to be a better one, but we should be prepared for an equally tough one. We have the strength within us and we can find support in each other. Maybe this year we were not physically so close with each other but we have prepared our hearts and minds to be open and accepting and supportive of the people around us.
So let's all be dauntless and embrace the strangeness of our time. Be curious and open to explore more about ourselves, outside of our usual habits. Be sympathetic to the people that may be suffering around us. Be accepting of the different ways people manage to survive. Be dauntless of life. Love it, embrace it, live it.
Happy New Year everyone!