On New Beginnings

I have a pretty wild relationship with New Year. Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated with traditions surrounding the transition from one year to the next.

In Spain, for instance, it’s a common practice to eat 12 grapes for each strike of the bell at midnight; some countries smash plates or even throw furniture out the window. They have always made me curious about the intention behind them and about the connection between them.

My family has always made it a habit to share elaborate New Years resolutions that seem, each year, an attempt to fool Fate and finally succeed at our grand plans. I am no different, and have had many failures and some successes. This year, I am sure, will be no different.

In 2017 I conspired with my father and brother to shake things up by assigning each other resolutions. The thinking was that this would allow people who love us to decide what was in our best interest, and to create a framework of accountability.

It worked, sort of. I was assigned two resolutions to complete. The first, to publish my novel. The second, to quit drinking for an entire year.

The joke was on them, for you see, I had very little intention of publishing my novel and had recently decided that writing it had been a form of therapy and had also been contemplating a break from alcohol for some time due to a heavy party season. Now, almost 5 years later, I am still sober and genuinely love the lifestyle, but I find myself still trying to replicate the meteoric success of that year’s resolution.

This is the year!… Right?

The year after I quit drinking I decided to dedicate to perfecting sleep, and I took to it like wildfire. I read every book on sleep I could find, and the advice did seem to match up:

  • No screens an hour before bedtime

    • How?!

  • No light while you sleep

    • Sleep masks suck, and there’s not enough tape in the world to make the tiny lights on all of the devices in my room go away

  • No sound

    • Thankfully, I don’t really snore, but my dog does, and at the time of this experiment I lived on one of the busiest tram lines in Amsterdam, so I settled for a noise machine that simulates an oscilating fan

  • No caffeine after 2pm

    • This appears to be specific to my chronotype, but this alone was a game changer for me.

  • Delay caffeine intake to later than 90min after waking

    • This also was a huge game changer

  • Avoid carbohydrates close to bedtime

  • Read fiction before bed

Once I had fully implemented these changes I did see a remarkable impact on the quality and stability of my sleep, but it took maybe 3 months to nail down, and somehow it felt like I hadn’t aimed high enough.

The next year was about getting a six pack and being able to do a muscle up. I failed. Maybe they were too specific? Maybe I just didn’t care? Either way, the year after I set up 3 resolutions that would be spread throughout the year. I was going to learn FOUR languages.

Well, I did technically succeed, but my criteria seems to have been the mistake, there. I passed A2 exams in each language, but I still can’t formulate a sentence with a stranger to save my life.

So this year, what will I do? Well, first, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking this year about these past failures and they all have one thing in common, and that is that they are “Means” goals. They’re also quite static. I think I was onto something by making my resolutions last year astronomically difficult, but I lacked purpose.

I lacked a “Why” Goal.

As I mentioned in my post “The Final Why”, if you’re able to spend some time getting to the real “Why” of a thing, then the “Means” don’t matter. Why did I want to learn 4 languages? Why did I care about a 6 pack?

I think they both possibly contain very real reasons, but those reasons are hidden behind the task nature of the means goal. So what am I going to do this year?

This year I have chosen the themes of “Mobility,” and “Thoughtitude” (totally made up) and have a couple of Why goals that go along with them.

If I ask myself why I want to be physically mobile, it is to be able to extend my health span, and to feel good and able for as long as possible. If I ask why I want to have lifestyle mobility, it is to have as much flexibility as possible to account for life changes, and opportunities and to explore the planet more.

Below are some of the Means I will attempt for both Physical Mobility and Lifestyle Mobility, but remember that the Means don’t matter, only that they work for the Why:

  • Physical Mobility

    • Calisthenics allows you to strengthen muscles at the extent of their natural range of motion, and promotes better proprioception (bodily awareness), and can strengthen auxiliary muscle groups that are often easy injured at older age. As it doesn’t include any additional weights, the escalation of movements is controlled entirely by your own body’s ability to handle itself.

    • Yoga emphasizes breathwork and strength at extension as well as flexibility. Yin and Yang styles are both complementary and allow you to both strengthen at extension and also relax into extension. It is also excellent for endurance and balance.

    • Bouldering (rock climbing without a top rope) promotes proprioception, balance and grip strength and activates neurons in similar ways to lateral thinking puzzles.

    • Etc.

  • Lifestyle Mobility

    • Luckily my work allows me to be both location and time independent and so I have the ability to work from anywhere, however I have learned that this is best kept to yourself as it can sometimes make other people feel bad, even if there is nothing wrong with doing it and you are getting your work done

    • Invest in experiences in new places

    • Limit expenses as much as possible

As you can probably tell, this second one is the one I will likely have the most issues with, and I will come back to this often as I think of more ideas.

As for the made up word “thoughtitude”, this one is simple. I will make it a daily practice to share gratitude to someone who has affected my life and will dedicate a small amount of time toward doing something specifically thoughtful for someone else in the spirit of kindness.

Why? Besides it being the right thing to do, this also helps to make the environment of my life more habitable toward the people that I love (current and future).

I hope that these both are wildly successful, but know that even in the attempt I will have made my life, and hopefully the lives of those I care about, just a litttttle bit better.