2015 felt like it was an absolutely monumental year for so
many people. I felt like everyone I knew was electric with an energy they
couldn’t explain, but they were harnessing the momentum with no questions
asked. We all had victories and more importantly some failures that made us
realize that sometimes we don’t always need a ‘W’ to understand the world
around us a little bit better.
But now it’s 2016 and last year’s high is starting to wear
off and I’m a little bit terrified. How do I follow-up a year that was so epic
and grand in every way possible? There were so many amazing opportunities I was
able to take, places I was able to travel (NOLA, ATL, SEATAC for starters), so
many foods I was able to taste (Turtle soup, anyone?) that it hardly seems
possible one could experience another year that’s half as good.
Every year from last year can’t be something I’m trying to
trump with some grandiose and ornate event. Even just thinking about it is
nonsense because it isn’t fair to myself or the world around me to set such
unrealistic expectations.
Instead, this year I want to focus on my time spent being
great in a way that’s less. If I don’t
recall, I remember being a little overwhelmed at the peak of it all last year.
All I could think was, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could just do nothing for one minute?” So this year, I’m
doing a cleanse. Well actually, I’m doing three.
- The first cleanse will be digital. No, I’m not going off the grid. I like the interwebs too much and I did a little of that during the last half of last year anyway, and I’m thinking I’m ready to face the world at a more metered pace. No, this time I mean to be very intentional about how I interact with tech. I woke up to 21 emails this morning, work not included. Which means I had 21 different distraction to pull my attention from just waking up and enjoying my warm, safe bed. I’m going to purge and reprogram my inbox and stop letting messages beat me down before I realize that they’ve already taken over my day. I’ll organize my folders so that my J. Crew sales still come to me, but they go into a folder, are marked as read, and if I think about them, I can access them. I don’t feel like I’ve missed out, and I don’t get daily reminders of the adorable vests I don’t need.
- Next up as you may have guessed, is my closet. I am a notorious shopaholic and while I pride myself on finding great pieces, I still have an over-full closet, stuffed dresser and suitcase or two that’s packed with a lot of “necessities”. The thing is, when you look at people who are successful or have minimized their closets, they are always infinitely more at ease about getting dressed in their favorite pieces. Now, I don’t propose to go for the all-white wardrobe because I like buffalo wings way too much to pretend like my fate is anything less than sauce-covered, but I will acknowledge that at a minimum I’ll go for the neutrals with a few floral accents because I can’t resist a good pattern. This guideline along with my standard “If it hasn’t been worn in the last year, say goodbye” rule, should reduce my closet and supply the local donations spot with a decent “new” selection.
- I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t dabbling in a juice cleanse regularly. I love food and nothing will separate me from my sincere love of a good hot plate of fried-fill-in-the-blank, but I also appreciate a good pressed juice and how I feel after three days of sipping the deliciousness in each bottle. So I'll embark on a juice cleanse with my man-friend along my side as he’s so valiantly volunteered to do, and because I generally eat pretty clean I won’t worry about doing some monstrous diet that will not support my lifestyle.
It’s not a lot of big moves and I won’t have to do these things
every day or even every month, but it’s a start. I’m choosing to find joy this
year and that manifests itself by choosing a little less in a few aspects of my
life and I think that’s enough. What are you doing to commemorate the rest of these next 360+?
Happy New Year, friends!
