If I were to judge 2017 by the resolutions I made in the first week, I should probably consider it a failure. Last year, I gave up on ambitious New Year plans and committed myself to just 3 basic things – cooking, blogging, and working out.
It turns out, New Year’s resolutions are another thing I should probably give up on completely. I still only work out when there’s a gym next door (luckily I live right next to one), still only cook when my brother comes over, and blog much less frequently than I planned to.
Still, even though I didn’t complete any of these simple three items, I’m amazed by how much I have achieved this past year. Day to day, it usually feels like struggling to get out of bed, and drinking crazy amounts of coffee to keep myself going. Only looking back I can see that during these few months, I:
- Got engaged to my amazing partner and my best friend,
- Bought a lovely apartment together with him,
- Had 2 articles published in a nation-wide magazine (and the third one is going to be even better!),
- Co-organized a big 2-day coding workshop for women and several smaller classes,
- Meditated more often than not during the entire year,
- Attended my first WordCamp as a speaker, and another one as a volunteer,
- Finished a scuba diver course in freezing cold water (and freezing air temperature around),
- Deadlifted more than my bodyweight, multiple times in series of 5,
- Learn how to sing traditional Eastern European songs from some very best teachers of this craft,
- Sold a picture I painted (who would have thought, huh?),
- Travelled to the US, Italy, Ireland, France, Denmark, Greece, Canada, and now came to Thailand with an unexpected layover in Turkey, and possibly more unexpected stops on the way back,
- Visited NASA Space Center, including the famous Houston Mission Control,
- Survived multiple breakdowns, failures, self-doubts, and panic attacks which turned into breakthroughs and made me all much stronger.
There’s no way I could have planned most of these things. A year ago I’d never make a resolution to write for a kids’ magazine, the one that I work with hadn’t existed yet at that time. Should I have focused on my blogging goal and kindly refused to join them until this one is met? Sometimes the best choice is to reevaluate plans, give up on everything that’s not necessary, and jump into the unknown.
This year I’m not even trying to create a resolution list. My only resolution is to always stay present and aware of the choices in front of me. In practice, this means to continue meditating and keep my Internet distractions under control – these are two things that helped me most in navigating through life. Whenever I’m stuck in my head, I feel like banging this very head against a wall. Meditation and freeing myself from distractions both help me see much more clearly, and gain more control of what I do with my hours and days.
The end of a year is usually a time of summaries, reflections, and planning ahead. I always enjoyed the quiet moments when I could redesign my site, and in the process also redesign myself. This year, there’s so much going on that I can barely keep track of it all. If all goes well, I may complete an advanced diving course on shipwrecks and coral reefs, teach two workshops in India, write another great article, and book a wedding venue without even returning to Poland, all by the end of this month. If that’s just January, who knows what else can happen during the rest of the year? 😉