Happy New Year! This is an opportunity to make choices that will improve your well-being and your enjoyment of life. If you make the challenge too large (I’m going to lose 50 pounds; I’m going to work out two hours a day), you stand a good chance of failing. Keep it small and simple and you have a much better chance of getting there (I’m going to eliminate snacks today; I’m going for one vigorous walk after lunch). One day turns into two and then three and, before you know it, you are feeling better and that is its own motivation.
It could also be something social for those feeling isolated – maybe you take an active step to find a book club in your area or join your town’s Newcomers Club. You could volunteer at your church (or join a church) or help out at the local animal shelter once a month. Tiny doses of social interaction can be a big achievement for those who aren’t used to it. They can also be a powerful antidepressant.
Anyway, here’s to starting the new year together with the resolve to consume news in a way that doesn’t make us sick or indoctrinate us into ideological thinking; in a way that keeps us informed, makes us think, makes us laugh, and makes us feel more motivated, empowered, and connected.
I thought I’d include one more thing here for you, a poem by Joseph Massey. He wrote Rosary Made of Air, and it is positively serene – a dose of calm and reflection in this otherwise often too chaotic world. Here it is, and, again, Happy New Year.
– Megyn
The Reprieve
A week
that freezes, thaws,
and freezes again.
The skyline scales
and cracks.
Morning’s frayed
gray plumes
pull through the wreck
and the wreck in mind.
To be reminded
there’s grace
in ordinary weather,
in the reprieve
from neon
and clouds low enough
to cloud thought. Grace
in daylight, the drowse
and sway;
and how, when it’s this
thin, things barely cling
to their names. Grace
to be nameless, a form
among forms, drifting
in winter glare.
Grace, too,
when windows
reflect and distort,
at night,
the shape of a room.
Joseph Massey is the author of Rosary Made of Air and a weekly poetry newsletter, Dispatches from the Basement. You can also find him on Twitter @jmasseypoet.