Happy New Year

I remember being told once that what you do on New Year’s Day is indicative of what you will be doing in that year. It makes sense since what you choose to do with a day off can certainly show your priorities. But we all know that we often subvert our personal priorities for obligation and perceived responsibility. Days off are days off. They take us out of our routine and give us a vacation from responsibility. I think I’m spending this New Year’s much as I’ve spent the past several, but it is not necessarily how I’ve spent my years.

I woke early this morning, before anyone else in the house, got the coffee started and settled into the couch with some light reading. I noticed a Goodreads invitation to submit my 2017 reading challenge and so took half a minute to think about what might be reasonable and then typed in 50 even though it's not. True, I read 51 books this past year – not hard because half of them were student fiction – but this year I’m hoping to sign up for a post graduate program and won’t have the same kind of pleasure reading time that I had last year. Then I think about how much time I spend trolling through Facebook and playing mindless games and reading frustrating blog posts and remember that 50 books is well within my means.

Let’s stop that train of thought though because if what you are doing on New Year’s is what you’ll be doing through the year then I know I want to do a lot less self-flagellation and a lot more energized action.

So here's what I want to continue doing after this morning. Reading, being close to my husband, planning for a better world. And what the picture can't show is the action taken because I will give myself time to refresh.