Something you may love

Something you may love...

Let’s first agree that the whole process of writing your New Year’s resolution is a hard, frustrating, and confusing one.

For instance, one needs to sit down alone. A needed skill that is declining day after day. Firstly, you need a chair, and hopefully a comfortable one. But the chair, unfortunately, is not enough. Now you should encourage yourself to sit down, be silent for a moment, neglect all the outside distractions, and focus on listening to your inner voices. And among all these tasks, finding a comfortable chair is definitely the easiest one.

You see, you not only need to sit down, but you also need to sit for a suitable period of time. A length of time that is, at least, equivalent to the time you need to spend while enjoying your Starbucks Double Shots Grande Vanilla Latte. And during that coffee drinking phase, you need to think carefully about what points you are going to choose, what priorities you are going to focus on, what you should put first, what you hope to achieve by the end of that year, and what you are willing to neglect.

And presuming that it is easy to answer all these ‘what’ questions, let’s ask you to be kind enough to also add another two ‘who’ questions. While you are working hard to find answers for all the previously mentioned points, you not only need to know who you are and what you can do, but also—and more importantly—you need to know who you are not and what you cannot, should not, and must not attempt or even think of doing. in the hopes that you do not embarrass yourself during those long 365 upcoming days.

Not to mention another eerie situation. One that adds more pressure to the whole process. This one comes with a beautiful Halloween vibe. I am speaking here about all the ghosts of your dead previous year’s resolution—those who you feel are still rooming inside your head. It is really hard to escape from them. In some severe cases, one starts encountering them in real life, expecting those poor dead resolutions to be seen flying over one’s head, as if they are demanding revenge for neglecting, failing, and leaving them to wither and die in the last year.

Nevertheless ………

I like this word, 'nevertheless'. It gives me the feeling that I should stop whatever I am doing, stand up straight, point my index finger to the sky, get a serious reaction on my face, change my voice tone, and pretend with whatever left of my inner power that I am going to say something worth listening to. Or whatever wisdom we can get from a single word that sums up all that we may say about ‘Hope’, and by that, I mean that we should always remember that whatever we have in this life is ‘Never’ ‘Less’. So, back to our wise word, ‘Nevertheless’.

Nevertheless, you courageously sat down with your Starbucks Double Shots Grande Vanilla Latte to write your New Year’s resolutions. Congrats on choosing a good drink, finally. And double congrats on beating your inner demons, temporarily.

Now, presumably, the list cannot but include something that involves your body. This is kind of a universal law. A line that speaks about taking care of your body must be within a resolution, any resolution, especially ‘your’ resolution, and I believe you and I both know what I am talking about.

Naturally, going to the gym comes as a first option on that good-fit-strong-healthy-body-wishful list. It has always been an aim most people—or at least those I represent—have failed to keep for more than 3 months, and that is in a good year. In a not-so-good year, this bar could barely reach 3 weeks. And in some hopeless cases, our best score can reach 3 days. We have failed to keep going to the gym despite all the determination, motivation, and New Year’s Discount offers on our forever new memberships’ accounts.

By the way, I am not sure about you, but it has just occurred to me while I am writing this piece that the number 3 is my unlucky lucky number. How about you? Have you found yours yet? I wish you luck this year in finding your unlucky lucky number.

But anyhow, a promise must be made to keep your body fit, strong, and healthy. Remember, it is a universal law, and who would like to break a universal law? So, go to the gym. Or practice at home. Calisthenics is a good idea. And for all the hipsters out there, do not worry; we did not forget you. CrossFit is another alternative that is now available in that ‘body’ list. A warm congratulations to all the hipsters out there, including me.

You may also add something that involves having a good-fit, strong, and healthy mind. Reading books is good—very good indeed. I know many books. Some of them I consider to be very close friends of mine. The only semi-alive species where even the bad, terrible, horribly written book can fit as a good friend for someone out there. Find a friend—I mean, a book. We can only trust books and dogs. Their loyalty has been proven day after day, as they are the only discovered species so far that will never think of leaving you. I believe unicorns will be added to this list of ‘Forever Loyal Friends’ once we discover them. And just to be clear, by “them” here I mean the ‘unicorns’ not the ‘friends’.

I would suggest a visit to the nearest bookstore. It would definitely serve as a great opportunity to find your loyal match. And to help you with a short list, consider the following names: Malcolm Gladwell, Simon Sinek, and Brené Brown. Any book from their published work will surely be a win-win situation. You will find something worth remembering after finishing their books. Besides, you can pick from their books some lines that can serve as a good start for a discussion topic in whatever boring situation you may find yourself stuck in. And finally, it is always a good idea to pay a little attention to those authors. One last point: please do not consider downloading a free PDF file of any writer’s work. PDFs are hardly considered to be friends, not to mention good friends, especially those free ones.

Other aims in the new year may include some people. Your family, your friends—not including books—your colleagues, your mates, or whomever got lucky enough to be involved in sharing and shaping your fate in whatever phase you are living now in this world. Aiming to have a good relationship with people, especially those around you, is never a bad idea. It includes an unavoidable amount of suffering that is guaranteed. Sadness, struggling, confusion, and, in some extreme cases, tears. All these are important parts of that relationship menu, per se. Yet our relationships with people are, most likely, the only life suffering we cannot escape from. So, with all its perks, let’s be brave enough and choose, willingly, to put some effort into our fate-mates.

But one thing I would deeply recommend for your resolution this year is something that I learned from last Saturday’s Toastmasters Club meeting. Something that, when I went back home, I could not resist but to rethink.

You know, I was the photographer at that meeting. I love photography. I am saving for my Hasselblad camera. It is a camera that is going to cost me at least—in the case of having a really huge discount during one of those 11.11 days in China—not less than 18 thousand Chinese yuan. Yes, one, eight, and three zeros. Yi wan ba kuai qian. Don’t shout! I completely failed to think of buying any other camera. I want this one, and when I sum up enough money—and courage—to withdraw that amount from my forever small bank account, I am going to get it. Anyhow, until I get my Hasselblad, I tried with my Huawei P20 Pro phone camera, the phone I bought in 2018. You may do the math in whatever year you are reading this in. I tried my best. The phone camera helped me with her best; my phone is male, but ‘his’ camera is female; they have a good relationship; they work together very well; and they deliver great results. Besides, she is a dear friend of mine.

I did some photo editing, applied some filters, and added a few emojis here and there, including flowers, smiley faces, photo effects, and, more importantly, hearts. I added hearts in all shapes, colours, and sizes. And then, I posted these photos to the Toastmasters WeChat group, and the results, surprisingly, pleased everyone. Everyone loved my photos, everyone was happy, and everyone had good comments on the photos.

I was surprised. Really surprised. I did not expect the photos to be liked that much. Everyone was happy, and I thought that I was happy that I helped with my photos to make everyone happy. But after I went home, I needed to take some time to rethink the whole situation. I wanted to reconsider the whole experience because I asked myself how I could repeat it again, how I could please everyone with my work, and how I could make everyone around me happy.

I thought about it as much as I could. I tried to analyze every step backward; I tried to decipher the formula of happiness; I tried to solve that puzzle; and I tried to find the common factor in that equation. And to my surprise, I found that the matter was much simpler than all that. I believe everyone was happy with my photos simply because ‘I’ was happy. 

I was happy during the time I was taking the photos, happy to spend time editing them, happy to post them in the group, happy to read the comments, and even happier to write about this experience right now and to share it with everyone who is reading this right now.

Which brings me to my last and final recommendation for your New Year’s resolution. 

While writing your New Year’s Resolutions for whatever upcoming year, add something that makes you happy, something you know you love doing, something that, after you do it, you will add so many hearts to it, hearts of all shapes, colours, and sizes. Add something to your list that you will lose yourself doing, even though it might be for free. And I can tell you, it would be something you not only will start adding to every New Year’s Resolutions list from now on, but also something that I guarantee you will succeed in doing year after year.

Now, you have your recommendations, you have your chair, I believe you have your list in mind, I hope you have a pen in your hand, and I presume you already have your Starbucks Double Shots Grande Vanilla Latte in your other hand. 

I wish you a happy, lovely New Year’s resolution, one that is full of hearts.

Nevertheless ………