A Journey into the New Year
It’s inevitable. In the passage that is marked by the end of one year and the start of a new one, we humans seem to instinctively enter into a period of reflection and repose, in which we review the good and the bad of the previous year and project into the future: what will we do better, how will we be kinder, what bad habits will we finally let go of … etcetera.
We all know it, we’ve all done it: with a combination of faith and trepidation we clench the fists and tell ourselves: I can do this. This year, I’m going to make that list and stick to it.
For 2022 I want to propose something simpler. Two resolutions. I did this last year and I think it might work for you, too.
The year 2020, if you recall, catapulted most of the world into a new and unexpected reality, which many of us came to describe as “science fiction.” By 2021 we had fallen into the rhythm, we were a bit more accustomed but life more or less continued to feel a bit like a “brave new world” that nobody would have ever asked or hoped for.
By 2021 we had fallen into the rhythm, we were a bit more accustomed but life more or less continued to feel a bit like a “brave new world” that nobody would have ever asked or hoped for.
“Over the past two years our work lives have changed – some of us found ourselves working harder than ever, others among us lost jobs and had to regroup. For our kids, life took a 180º turn with remote school, zoom in our homes, which became littered with unthinkable tangles of cables and extension cords, impromptu desks and many a broken headphone. And then after that – the joys of hybrid school: crazy calendars pinned to the refrigerator, daily health screenings, masks at school…I don’t have to tell you. You know. It was an exhausting year. And this is to say nothing of those among us who were forced to face the illness and death of loved ones.”
Back in January 2021 I asked myself: how on earth am I going to get through another year like this? I had already had to deal with an avalanche of challenges – professional, medical, dental. You name it, I had it. I simply had no energy to propose new challenges, but I needed to do something. What I needed was a little help. A little inspiration.
Where did I turn? I simplified things. No big list. Just two things: read and write every day. Not James Joyce’s Ulysses, not Don Quixote. But every day, before making breakfast, showering, or checking the emails that never stop coming (and never will), I would take time –15 minutes one day, 30 minutes another day– to read, even if it was just a daily inspiration, and then to write, even if it was just to dash off a paragraph saying “I don’t have time to write.”
How did I do?
Reading and writing every day transformed my 2021. Unable to travel in the “real world” I traveled with books – to Spain with Federico García Lorca, to England with CS Lewis and Charles II, to Peru with César Vallejo, to Mexico and Guatemala and Chilean Patagonia, and around the US, too. With novels and biographies I saw different ways of living, different perspectives on problems and different ways to tell stories. With poetry I felt different things through words. And then my own writing: sometimes I’d just recount my daily activities, sometimes I would go deeper into my personal psychology, my past, my future. From the banal to the profound. Different every day.
I did this very imperfectly. There were days when I just couldn’t do it: when work caught up with me, when one of my daughters got sick, when I just felt like watching TV on a lazy Saturday.
But I have to say – the lapses were not many. After a couple of months, this little resolution became a ritual and almost immediately I began to feel its positive effects, the “results,” if you will.
And what were those results? On the one hand, a list of books read and a word document with a certain number of pages written. But there are other results that don’t have to do with numbers, or achievements. The “result” of committing to this practice was infinitely more subtle and complex.
The result was an attitude. An attitude of openness, of feeling that I would indeed be able to handle whatever challenge came my way this year. I’m not 100% sure why reading and writing had this effect on me, but the experts in literacy always say the same thing: the more you read, the better you read. The more you write the better you write. What does that mean, really? To read and write better? Well, reading and writing are two-way streets. They guide us out, into the world, but they also guide us inward, toward ourselves. And the more we read and write, the more places we go – internal places where, suddenly, we are illuminated with ideas, perspectives and solutions to problems that, in the hurly-burly of our everyday existence, we might not hit upon. And that, I think, is the secret behind the “magic” I experienced. achievements. The “result” of committing to this practice was infinitely more subtle and complex.
The book we’ve highlighted this month is about Selenio, a pizza delivery boy in outer space who finds himself in an anxiety-producing dilemma. A pizza he must deliver to a distant planet grows cold on the way, and he is gripped with the fear of losing his job if he doesn’t fix the situation, pronto.
I don’t want to spoil the ending for you. All I’ll say is that a little lightbulb goes off in the head of our protagonist Selenio. Inspiration strikes, and he arrives at a solution. Just like my resolutions for 2021, Selenio resolves his problem by turning to an unexpected source for help. Finding a different path than the one he normally takes. Exactly what reading and writing invite us to do.
To propose a daily, consistent practice of reading and writing is not a resolution, even- it’s a gift that we can give ourselves, for it will inevitably open doors to new places, inspirations and solutions that we might never have imagined on our own.
We will never perfectly fulfill our New Year’s resolutions. But that shouldn’t stop us from trying. To propose a daily, consistent practice of reading and writing is not a resolution, even- it’s a gift that we can give ourselves, for it will inevitably open doors to new places, inspirations and solutions that we might never have imagined on our own. A magical two-way road that never ends. And so – in the spirit of the New Year, and new beginnings, we invite you to partake of this gift, join us on this never-ending journey into ourselves and, outwardly into the world —and maybe even into outer space with Selenio, too.