Happy New Year 2020!
I hope you had the chance to rest, eat delicious food, spend time with your loved ones, get closer to nature and do whatever makes you happy. 2020 has now begun and swings us to a new decade, with everything it holds of excitement, apprehension and new adventures.
The decision not to take resolutions
I don't do resolutions anymore. I'm personally against them because I believe they bring too much pressure on individuals while discouraging us from taking action the rest of the year. I've been struck to see the overwhelming presence of resolution posts on social and mainstream media about what to change and what to do for this new year: it's a little bit anxiety-provoking! After all, the only constant is change. That means that we can start changing anytime, not just at the beginning of each year. Each day is an opportunity to start changing, if we feel the urge to. Calendar years are just this: calendar years, they shouldn't restrain you from initiating change. Of course, if resolutions work for you, please go ahead - but don't put pressure on yourself (or others) by committing to things that are hard to keep in the long-run, which can become unsustainable and end up making you feel more miserable than happy. Try to take change as it comes, one step at a time - only you really know what's right for you.
Last year, I posted a Happy New Year 2019 article focusing on doing things rather than just talking about them. I think I've successfully managed to do this for both better or worse: I moved away from a stable job and life in London to Edinburgh to take up a new job and live on my own. I also finally booked tickets to New Zealand to travel alone in a camper van for a month last Summer. I ended a very long relationship. While 2019 has been freeing in many ways, as I ultimately succeeded in taking decisions for myself, it has also been very tough: the company I began working for collapsed weeks after I started while I went through a tough breakup which led me to struggle with depression and feeling more isolated than I have ever felt before.
If resolutions work for you, please go ahead - but try to take change as it comes, one step at a time - only you really know what's right for you.
The benefits of being alone
Being alone and experiencing loneliness has also freed me and made me more resilient. What matters to me and what I enjoy became clear again: climate change and the environment, researching and writing about it and incurable curiosity. I grasped what I'm good at and not so good at. To me, that translated into applying to start a PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2020 in climate change and ecology, and going back to New Zealand for a few months in January. A year ago, I wouldn't have done this because I felt incapable of it. Now I know that I'm capable and able to do what I want. Anyone can.
Slowing down in times of crisis
2019 has also taught me to slow down, the necessity of doing so and my intention to pursue just this in 2020. We have to slow down to understand how to act in times of crisis, to act away from hysteria although we instinctively tend to do the opposite. This is valid for any crisis, including our current climate crisis: despite the fact that we need to act fast, we also need to figure out how to act to instigate systemic changes rather than quick fixes which are by definition, unsustainable. This is a fine balance, but because I have recently been in a time of crisis myself, the notion of slowing down has very much fuelled my perspective on how we need to act as a society to tackle our current environmental, social and economic issues.
You're not serving anyone by being small
What I mean to do by sharing my personal story and rambling about being against resolutions, is that we always underestimate how important it is to take decisions for ourselves, without including others' emotional states into our choices. Of course, we can talk with the people who matter to us when we take decisions; however, the impacts of our decisions on others shouldn't drive the directions we take at the cost of our own happiness. You're not serving anyone by being small. I strongly believe that happy humans leads to a happier planet - it has been proven that distressing times see people caring less about the environment.
This year, more than ever before, I believe in making happiness happen for yourself, to benefit you of course but also your community and the planet. We need to continue asking questions, questions that matter, that embed us into the world and our society: How do we see ourselves as a society?, How do we foster human growth rather than economic growth? How can we be happier? What really matters to us?
Purpose drives us; we need to find what works for ourselves.
Happy new year 2020.
Love,
Mathilde
PS: A good podcast to start the year: the latest episode of Sustainababble with Jonathan Rawson, Chess Grandmaster, on wisdom and our ability to slow down.
`