Today is
It's been a few months! In short, I got very busy with university and job applications, then suddenly it was finals season, and then as soon as that was all over, I flew to the US to visit my family and celebrate Christmas. Since then I've been recovering from a nasty combination of flu and pneumonia (both at once!!!) -- and spending some time exploring NYC and my parents' town with my girlfriend. It's hard to comprehend how fast the time has gone, but on the 19th I'll be flying back to HK for a job interview.
In the midst of all this, I am trying my best to reflect on the past year and concentrate on my priorities for 2025. January is one of my favourite months -- to me, it feels especially full of potential and excitement. I have spent many Januaries evaluating how well I achieved my resolutions from the past year, and crafting new and better resolutions for the upcoming one. This year, though I still have plenty of goals and dreams, I am thinking of approaching them differently.
I believe that by creating relatively many resolutions every year, I confused quantity with comprehensiveness. When evaluating each year solely based on how well I achieved my resolutions (or planning the whole year around my resolutions), I made the implicit and reductive assumption that my health, happiness, relationships and success -- i.e. my whole life -- could be quantified by just 15-20 resolutions. Campbell's Law seems appropriate: "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor." Okay, there were no corruption pressures involved in this, but the rest is very accurate.
This year will be a test for me to see if having fewer (or maybe even zero) written resolutions will cause my health, happiness, relationships and success to actually improve. It might serve me better to look at my life holistically instead of trying to come up with a holistic-seeming, but inherently limiting, set of resolutions. Maybe I should trust that I have the drive, ambition, and self-awareness to create a life that is best for me. And if that somehow doesn't work, who said you can't come up with mid-year resolutions? Much to think about :)
In other news, I'm excited to write more blog posts this year! I'm sure 2025 will be very eventful and I hope to document and explore all of it. Here's a start:
Currently reading: This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein, Iron God by Pierce Brown.
Currently creating: more article drafts (OverTheWire post maybe?), crocheted Snoopy stuffed animal!!!, cute cards to send family and friends.
Currently watching: Better Call Saul, How it's Made, My Neighbour Totoro.
Thanks for reading, and as always feel free to reach out at: ccarrieasmith [at] gmail [dot] com!