So 2024 is right around the corner, and so many of us are trying to decide how is next year going to be any different from this year.
If you haven’t been noticing, many people are still struggling with many different issues since the three years of the pandemic. There’s people living with food insecurity, there’s other people living with an unstable job market, and there’s other people trying to figure out how they want to live their life better in 2024.
While many people think you should write your New Year’s resolutions, there may be another way to think about it. What are the things that you’re not going to do anymore in the new year?
I spent a lot of my time being grateful for many things in my life versus dealing with some friendships that have become problematic.
I have one friend who says that she does not want to make any decisions or take any action even though she wants to endlessly talk about her problems. She seeks many options and opinions. But there’s a hardship on this issue and that friendship for me because I’ve offered a lot of practical and reasonable solutions.
Some people, however, like to talk about their problems over and over and over again and never get them resolved.
Is there a solution to every problem? I think there is, and it depends on how you handle it or how you’re not going to handle it anymore. Sure, you can delegate things to other people or you can say I don’t want to do this thing anymore because I don’t like it.
Here are some of the typical things that people usually list and the resolutions: lose weight, make more money, make more friends, move to a better place, get a better job, stop drinking, stop smoking, stop doing drugs, stop gambling, etc.
You get the picture, and the funny thing is if you’re like most people: you know the same issues you’ve been trying to fix or resolve for years, maybe even decades, never get done.
Then sometimes you just realize, well this is it, this is me, and I can’t get this to get any better.
Maybe that’s the real resolution part.
For me there’s been some goals that I’ve chosen that I’ve actually attained, and I’ve moved forward. While there’s other things that I still have on my list that I just seem to not be able to get a handle on.
I think next year will be different for a lot of people because just getting through the last three years of this global pandemic has really changed people’s mindset and lives on many different levels.
Some people have decided that the job they’re working they don’t wanna work anymore. Where other people think the place they’re living in, they don’t want to live there anymore. And then finally there’s people who decide there’s certain relationships or friendships they just don’t want to put any more energy or time into.
And you know what? This is all respectable and fine. To each their own.
Jerome Cleary is a columnist for the LA Independent and lives in West Hollywood. He can be reached at jeromecleary@aol.com.
