Phew, January is soon to be over! Such a very strange month when it comes to our collective psyche. All that New Year advice; those admonitions, strong suggestions, sparkling leadership. It comes with inspirational e-mails, charts, logs, newsletters, urgent sign-ups and sign-ins for a myriad of services to launch us and keep us on track with this new improved us.
It is an onslaught, and this, just after the Holiday hype and activity. It all stems from the long- and well-established tradition of the New Year’s resolution. For decades, maybe centuries, this at most, could involve a list written on paper and possibly sharing with a friend over a cup of tea.
Now, it is an intense career, lifestyle, fitness, and mental relaunch. Furthermore, it has been digitized and monetized. All that goodwill had to be captured and exploited; it could not go to waste and float around undirected and untapped in the ether. For years, the closest we came to the commercialization, was in the physical fitness zone. This in turn meant a gym and a membership. Oh dear, I expect you can hear me coming “How about going for a walk?”
There is now, most surely, a January plan for most activities, professions and pastimes. I write, so I subscribe to writing sites. “Write every day. Start your novel NOW. Read in your genre tout de suite. Sort out your plot. Fix up those characters. That sloppy structure is a thing of the past. Yes, this is all excellent, but I can’t do it all at once. Don’t nag!
A couple of blogs ago I proudly announced that I was starting on novel #2. Oh, dear reader, what can I say? I have done naught on that front. I have sat in on many webinars, hence all those instructions. But, as far as writing every day, all of a sudden, I got this great urge to revisit some of my Domestika art courses. But all is not lost! As I subscribe to some artsy newsletters, they tell me to draw/paint every day, which is just about what I have been doing at the expense of starting that novel.
My dear guru, Gretchen Rubin, who has a happiness podcast, along with her sister Liz, each draw up a new year’s list of activities of 24 for ’24 (last year was 23 for ’23, you get the idea, but where will this end, we wonder?) Then there is a collective resolution for her online community – that includes me. This year was to write for 24 minutes every day, or, let us be reasonable, the option of between 2 to 4 minutes. Hmmm. I wonder if the ‘To Do’ list counts?