I can't believe how quickly another year has gone by, since it feels like we just moved to Dubai. My 2024 New Year's Resolution was mindfulness. I think this year more so than many of my previous years I've had mixed success with my resolution. I started practicing mindful eating and finally broke the bad habit of eating while watching Netflix. It's been really nice to reclaim mealtime for family bonding without devices (including phones) and to be able to chat with each other, especially now that S can talk more. The Headspace app helped me improve my meditation practice a lot, and applying books like Pete Greig's How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People helped me make prayer more consistent and meaningful in my life. However, mindful sleeping is still a challenge for me. I recently started using a smartwatch that tracks my sleep patterns, and I discovered the time I actually spend in high quality sleep is much less than I thought. I'm still working on getting to bed at a reasonable hour, but it's hard between work, motherhood, exercise, religion, and maintaining my hobbies and friendships. On balance, I feel like I've changed some longstanding habits and made progress I'm happy with for now.
For 2025, I'd like to focus on two goals: embracing the joy of missing out (JOMO) and writing every day. I think these goals are related because making time to write every day involves necessary sacrifices in other aspects of life, but those sacrifices become less painful if I replace my innate fear of missing out (FOMO) with JOMO. I have a tendency to overbook my social calendar and sometimes commit to two or three engagements in a single evening, rapidly rushing from one to the other without enough time for full enjoyment of any one thing. This also leaves less time for other, more routine things that are important to me. 2025 is giving me a strong push in the right direction, as we're on a cruise that continues through the first part of January and I've been writing every day while letting go of the pressure I place on myself to find an elaborate tour or shore excursion in every port. (I took the sunset photo at the top of this post from the ship!)
Whether it's blogging, working on my latest novel manuscript, sharing microfiction on my new Bluesky account (since that's where most of the #WritingCommunity I used to interact with on Twitter seems to have gone), or writing short stories, this is an important creative outlet for me. I love the feeling of investing the time in improving my craft and telling stories. Luckily, I have two external deadlines to help motivate me for my novel manuscript in particular. I was accepted to an international speculative fiction workshop to refine the first part of my novel manuscript, and I received a backer reward of a manuscript critique by a renowned author in the genre for supporting the Kickstarter fundraising campaign of my favorite short speculative fiction publication, Uncanny Magazine. I hope 2025 will be a good year for my evolution as a writer while I learn to embrace JOMO.
I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Blessed Kwanzaa, and Happy New Year wherever you are. And if you do New Year's Resolutions like I do, please feel free to share your goals and hopes in the comments. I'm rooting for you!
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