lots of little things

Image credit: Butterfly on Hand by Olena Panasovska from the Noun Project

Sometimes the week just kind of disappears, doesn’t it? I’ve been trying to focus on/ remember the little things that make me happy throughout the week; the things that seem inconsequential but when I look more closely at them, I realise that they helped me survive the week. However, my memory is not what it once was, so I must dig deep to pull out some positive treasure.

Last year I wrote a post about the Little Things, and if I can recall correctly, it was just me listing off all the little things that cause me annoyance and frustration daily. This isn’t part 2 of that post however, so don’t worry. I think though, we can all agree that the second and third weeks of January are always hard. If you’re one of the hopeful who have made resolutions of giving up wine, cheese, chocolate, love or whatever, you might have this week found yourself with a red wine mouth, chocolate covered hands and a skin rash due to your lactose intolerance. If this sounds like you, then congratulations, you’re a human being.

As human beings, we like to set high expectations, wallow in failure and then pick ourselves back up to do it all over again, hopefully in a more efficient way next time. Because to be honest, it’s not resolutions that are hard; it’s beginning the year over again, being hopeful about an unknown future, and then going straight back into the same old routine of life and work, but now with new, much too high expectations of yourself. You’re bound to be disappointed; I know I was.

For me, my working life has been riddled by an anxiety-inducing issue that I have been trying to solve for months, but I have recently realised that the resolution of the issue is both within and outside of my control. So, planning for the future when most of your week is spent feeling stuck, is a pretty difficult feat. I have taken to doing very little things to make myself feel marginally better, until I can change my situation; writing poetry, working on a new writing project, watching a film alone in the cinema, catching up with my best friend. Small things separately that keep me going, somehow.

In the past I always made resolutions, and most of the time they were either grand things that I somehow managed to achieve because they took a lot of planning, or they were very small; like remove the word “can’t” from my vocabulary.

I am a realist on the surface. But this year, I am putting big plans in motion, to essentially make the most of my year, somehow. My goal is no longer to look back and be in a different place than I was at the beginning of the year; it is to look back and recall what a great year I had. I’m going to make some mistakes this year, I can feel it, and I’m going to fail a few times too. But I’m also going to succeed, with lots of little things.