I am still amazed at how fast 2022 flew by. And no, it is not every year that I feel this way – 2022 was determined to conclude as fast as it possibly could, to hell with all those things we had promised ourselves to do but hadn’t gotten round to doing.
At the beginning of last year, I made myself a couple of promises, not resolutions because I gave up on those ages ago, New Year resolutions don’t work for me. Some I honoured, others I discarded along the way after I realised that they were not a good fit, while there are those that I simply tucked away and forgot.
This year, rather than simply make mental notes, I will put down what I want to accomplish, notes that I will refer to once in a while to stay on track. I decided I will do this after coming across an old diary while decluttering towards the end of last year. The diary was about 15 years old, and I had written a long list of things that I wanted to do within a certain time frame. Lo and behold, I had achieved a majority of them, while the ones that remained didn’t really matter or had long been overtaken by events.
There is power in putting your thoughts on paper. Writing them down makes them feel more concrete, and makes you feel obligated to follow them through.
After finding my long forgotten diary, I got curious and decided to read a bit about the importance of writing your goals down. I learnt that it was not only important to write what you plan to achieve in the future, it was also important to vividly describe this achievement – what you envision it looking like, the time frame you have set yourself to achieve it.
You could go a step further and stick a picture of what best describes your dream next to what you have jotted down. A reminder of the gift that awaits you once you’ve completed the hard work will motivate you to keep going, to do what is required of you to get it done.
There is also the fact that writing your thoughts down helps you sift the important from the frivolous. Plus, it only makes sense that you’re bound to remember better the things that you write down, rather than those you commit to memory.
Besides writing down what I would like to achieve by the end of 2023, I have decided to live life to the fullest everyday by living in the moment and not allowing my fears, real and imagined, to get in my way.
It is true that life is short, dear reader, therefore, don’t wait to do what you can do today, tomorrow. If you feel the need to make things right with someone you wronged, this is the time. If there is someone you haven’t seen in a long time that you feel obligated to call or visit, then do it now because there really isn’t a right time to do some things.
There are those that did not live to see today. We that did have therefore been given a gift that we should fully embrace, one that we cannot afford to squander. Let’s enjoy this gift.
