New Year, New Netflix
What will this year mean to you?
Well, we did it. We survived 2021. It was a close call and the year decided to be a real dick right up to the end (RIP Betty White) but now here we are. Three hundred sixty five new days stretch before us like blank sheets of paper and we have the chance to write anything we want on them. Perhaps you’ll honor Joan Didion and have a year of magical thinking, or maybe you’ll open the door, look outside, yell out NOPE, and lock yourself in for another twelve months. Both would be perfectly reasonable.
We don’t know what’s coming in 2022 but we know it will be, again, unprecedented (at what point do you have so many unprecedented times that the unprecedented itself becomes precedented, which is definitely a word?). COVID is just a thing we live with now. The weather has had enough of us. All politicians are bad everywhere. Streaming content keeps getting better, thus remaining our only reason to stay alive. But whatever is coming and whatever the year brings, we get to choose how we deal with it and who we become because of it. So here are a few tools, books, and thoughts to help you decide who you will choose to be this year.
If you, like me, enjoy introspection, Year Compass is one of my favorite ways to reflect on the last year and plan for the next one.
If you want to make this your big year for travel, or just want to dream about a time when it’s safe to breathe around other people again, I recommend a subscription to Conde Nast Traveler, the gorgeous photo book Accidentally Wes Anderson, and Travel Man with Richard Ayoade which you can watch on Peacock and Amazon Prime.
If you, like most of us, need to practice forgiveness and would like to honor yet another great human taken from us this year, Desmond Tutu and his daughter, Mpho Tutu wrote The Book of Forgiving which I am trying very hard to get through but forgiving requires remembering and that, I’m afraid, is the hard part.
To help with that, therapy is probably the key, and if you, like me, have been in search of a good therapist for a while, this is the year to make it happen. There are several articles on the subject but I cannot tell you if their advice is good because I have yet to succeed in this endeavor. I will keep you posted.
If you want to try something new or find new direction, there is perhaps no better role model than Julia Child. I recommend the wonderful book Dearie by Bob Spitz, the film Julie and Julia (I usually fast forward through the Julie parts), and the new documentary simply titled Julia. If Julia Child can’t motivate you to find a new passion and change your life, then buy Mastering The Art of French Cooking and cook your way through it until she does.
We are all, obviously, thinking about health and fitness at all times and particularly at this time of year. But in 2022 I would encourage you to think differently about how you approach the subject. As a health and fitness nut who has spent 17 years trying desperately to fix my many broken parts I have decided that this year I will dive into the world of functional medicine, something completely new that may or may not work but is far outside of the realm of anything I have tried before. Maybe there is something you’ve been thinking about trying like acupuncture, or intermittent fasting (I’m a huge fan of this), or seeing a shaman (I live in LA and can tell you that this is a thing that people do). Maybe you’ve tried everything but giving yourself a break, or you’re so afraid to fail again that you’ve decided not to try anything at all. Make this the year that you think about your health, happiness, and inner peace in a new way. Even if it doesn’t work, it will shake you out of your comfort zone.
I love the New Year. I love any chance to reflect and plan and think about growth and change. None of us asked to be on this Earth but we’re here now so we may as well do our best. I hope that this year we all think more about our place in the world, the part we play in the health and well being of our communities, and about how the decisions we make every day will impact our own joy and the peace and joy of those around us. There is no doubt that it is going to be a tough year. But you can be sure that it’s still a good one.
Happy New Year.