Making New Year’s resolutions is always a slippery slope. It’s practically a cliche at this point to renege on one’s resolutions only a few weeks into the year, so what’s the point in making them at all? I have found this especially true since graduating from college; what is the point of making resolutions if I feel so utterly out of control of the direction of my life? Realistically, the best resolution would be to get a job, but as I discussed in my previous post, that is apparently not entirely up to me.

And yet the temptation of the New Year resolution is far too great. There is something so alluring about the fresh start the New Year brings, and I find myself longing to indulge in the tradition. So now I am at a crossroads: do I sink into the despairing feeling that I have no control over my life, that no matter what goals I set for myself I am doomed to be a victim of random events, or do I choose to be a bit more optimistic and focus on bettering the things that I do have control over?

I suppose I’ve always been an optimist.

And while this blog will always first and foremost be a place for people in their twenties to be lost together, it is also a place to hopefully find solutions to that. Plus, if I publicize my resolutions, it encourages me to hold myself accountable more.

Without further ado, I present my resolutions going into 2024:

Perhaps the thing I need to hold myself to the most is to finish the first draft of my novel. I’ve been working on this poor thing for almost five years now, or so I say. I indeed started conceptualizing the novel in 2019, but after working on it for about three years, I have spent the past two guiltily avoiding it. That feeling of avoidance, frankly, sucks. It makes me feel like a failure, like I am wasting my creative writing degree by letting it sit on the shelf. While logically I understand that writer’s block does not make me a failure, these emotions persist and persist until I begin to dread telling people that I am a writer, knowing I’ll inevitably get the “what are you working on” question that I hate answering. This cannot be a healthy way of going about my writing, and this guilt may wind up killing my love of the task. If that were to happen, I’m not sure what I would do with myself. And so, it’s time to light a fire under my ass and begin working on it again.

The next two resolutions both branch off from the first one. First, I want to write more in general. Beyond my novel (my white whale), I love writing in all mediums. I love writing poetry, I love writing short stories, I love writing these blog posts! And while starting this blog was one avenue for me to write more, the long expanse of time between my last post and this one shows that I still struggle a bit with that. I have ADHD, which makes focusing on my writing difficult for me, but I need to stop using that as an excuse. I’ve been gifted a FreeWrite for Christmas (not sponsored, I just love this thing), which is a smart typewriter that is made to eliminate distractions while writing, and I intend to make the most of this gift. If I can make any small adjustment to make sure I am writing without distraction, that I am fulfilling the desires I have without letting myself space out and give up, then I will be happy.

The other resolution that branches off from the first is to feel less guilty about things. I am my own worst critic, and I think that’s something that a lot of people my age can relate to. I constantly expect the absolute best from myself, leading to guilt when I am not meeting my standards. At first, this may not sound terrible, but the standards I set for myself are not always feasible. I am incapable of relaxing; I have convinced myself that if I am not working at every moment of the day, then I must be lazy and wasting my time and I begin to feel so immeasurably guilty that I just freeze. This guilt is counterintuitive. It prevents me from creating in the way that I want to because I become paralyzed. I need to cut myself some slack; while I should still be disciplined in my work and get the things done I need to do, there is no point in wallowing in guilt if I don’t do it all in one day. Allowing myself grace in moments where I falter will actually lead to more productivity since I won’t be afraid of disappointing myself. 

My final resolution is a culmination of all of these. When I’ve written more (as a result of both the resolution to write more and the resolution to feel less guilt), I want to submit my writing to online magazines. I am the co-editor-in-chief of The Icarus Writing Collective, an online literary magazine, and through Icarus, I get to read some of the most gorgeous, heart-wrenching, spine-tingling writing submitted by people who could be considered my peers, and I get to be a vessel for these talented writers to be published. I am endlessly inspired by the Icarus contributors, and yet I have not submitted my own writing anywhere in years. I discussed my relationship with rejection a little bit in my previous post, and that same fear and disappointment and world-ending feeling go beyond job applications and into my personal writing. That drowning feeling encompasses my senses and I find myself worried that a rejection of my writing means that I am actually terrible and my dreams have been a waste. Writing this out, it’s easy to see how silly that sounds; just because one person or one publication does not like my writing does not mean that I should just give up on it completely, but anxiety and insecurity are not rational. In 2024, I want to do my best to push through this anxiety and submit my writing to various publications. After all, your twenties are the time to try new things and find out what works for you, this is just my way of doing so.

There are so many things in my life that I feel like I have no control over, but these resolutions are a bit more manageable. I have no idea if I will be able to keep these resolutions throughout the New Year, but I do know I won’t be sure until I try. I am at a point in my life where everything seems so up in the air, where anything can happen. I might as well do my best with the aspects of my life that are fully within my control.

After all, the temptation for “new year, new me” is far too great to pass up, no matter how cringe.