My Hope for 2021

I have to confess that when the clock struck twelve on January 1st, 2021, I cried. It never crossed my mind that I would be emotional about the moment wretched 2020 would turn to history, but my heart was relieved to see a conglomerate of pain walk away. I am not a believer that a different day immediately improved things; we are still in the midst of everything 2020 brought for us. However, I know for sure that 2021 is the year of hope. We hope that things will get better from here. They will not be as normal as a year ago, but we expect this year to bring healing to our bodies, hearts, and pockets.

Last year I wrote about not letting 2020 be an accident. In retrospect, what an appropriate title for that train wreck year! Nonetheless, I was able to walk alongside my plan (haha!) and actually get stuff done. I used my planner as a guide for my day and believe that I was more focused in what I had to accomplish. Being at home for most of the year helped clear out my calendar and gave me more space to reflect, enjoy the little moments, and invest in our nucleus. I like how so much noise has been weeded out of my life and I want to keep it that way. I have reduced the time spent on repetitive tasks and have become a little more disciplined in keeping up with the tasks I can’t fully automate. I have grown to value an even simpler life by seeing more beauty in my routines and in a sense, using what I have to zhuzh things up.

In light of this, I want to continue cultivating this small garden. I like to keep my goals simple so I can stick to them. I, of course, have the ones everyone has, like eating healthy and saving more money, but those aren’t the ones I want to pay the most attention to. From the previous post on my learnings of 2020, I realized that I have been spending an increasing amount of time on my phone that has not been benefitting me. It keeps me away from family, pushes me to spend more, and at times, to question my blessings. Even the entertainment I seek through it has lost most of its value to me. I think that it will only benefit me to step away from my devices.

You can’t set a goal without a plan, because you won’t get anywhere. In order to live more in the moment and find the hidden beauty in the normal, I want to read more. Even though I already take advantage of the library’s audible books and listen to about a couple a month, I want to take it a step further. I have a few piles of books that I have been looking forward to reading but sadly have not touched. Deciding to pick up a book for a few minutes a day instead of my phone, will water me and make me very fruitful, enabling me to give to others. As a consequence, I hope to sleep better, try new things around my neighborhood, discover new interesting topics, learn a bit about art, and cook some new dishes. Reading will breathe newness and refreshment in me.

I have a very attainable measure of reading a book a month. To get this done, I will be reading every day this year. At that rate, I will probably be able to read more than twelve books and will celebrate and welcome that. Yet to keep pressure away, I will just focus on completing one a month. You will definitely be hearing about how I am doing, in my mid-year review, and in my book review section.

I hope that this encourages you to nurture some of the good you learned from 2020, and encourages you to pick one thing to tackle this year. Remember, a few minutes a day can make you better each day.