My father spent the last day of every year going through a multi-page printed list of his intentions for the previous year, crossing out what he had achieved, which was usually not much, and putting the rest on a new, revised list handed over. The process took hours, and he drank Calvados from a bottle with a mischievous old man in a striped drowsiness on the label. “I need his support,” my father said.
Even as a child, I knew that good solutions do not work and inevitably spoil your mood. Since then, all sorts of studies have proven me right, and good explanations for this are also published every year. However, we cannot leave him. And I can’t resist the thought of slipping out of last year’s old leather and standing there sparkling clean and free of scratches and dents like the first day. I also want to believe that everything is possible again, everything is open.
It starts with an agenda. I childishly set a new agenda and stick bright stickers on blank pages. As if I could stop them from filling up with appointments and tasks and commitments. And like my father, but at the same time very different from him, I take the time between the end of December and the end of January to reflect on the past and the coming years.
I no longer make “good” decisions. For what is this if not a desperate attempt to change, correct, bend? Oh, how I hate the concept of self-improvement, which means that I am not enough for who I am. Thank you, this is what I grew up with. I have spent my youth and too much of my adult life in this delusion. Like probably most of my generation, I believed that I had to work tirelessly on myself in order to be sufficient. Who to grab? What are the rules? What ideas?
But over the years, I have become more and more aware that I only have this one life. Only this one body, this one mind, this one heart. And that in my limited time here I can probably use and deploy it better and smarter than with constant demands, arrogance and criticism. Instead of construction sites and problems to fix and patch, I prefer to see unimaginable opportunities, untapped potential, and unfulfilled dreams. Instead of resolutions, I formulate wishes. Instead of whipping, I spread my wings.
And so I sit not with Calvados, but with a glass of wine and think about my desires for the last year. Like my father then, I can cross almost nothing off my list. But in return, wishes came true, which I did not even suspect that they were inside me. Like every year in my life, this past year surprised me, fascinated me, challenged me, brought me to my knees, pushed me to the limit, and filled me with gratitude. The next one will be too. I’m looking forward to it.