- Feb 3, 2024
- LitBits
- 0
New blog post by Rachel McCarron
My Resolution (Or a List of Books)
As the old year comes to a close, I think about things I am grateful for and about fostering good habits for the new year ahead. Which is ridiculous, I know. Why should the day after the thirty-first of December have any more significance for gratitude or self-improvement than, say, March 6th or September 7th? If you want to make a positive change or be thankful for the good things in life, just do it. Do it now.
March 6th happens to be the birthday of one of my characters, but I mention September 7th because on this date in 2019, after a prolonged period of low mood that found me circling the drain of full-blown depression, I made a resolution. It was hardly anything at all, no action, just a decision not to drown.
A hideous week at work, ending late on a Friday night feeling hopeless in a dark and stormy carpark, gave way to a gloriously sunny Saturday and found me waking from the deepest sleep I had had in months. Husband decided on a trip to Chester Zoo.
‘What am I, like ten years old?’
‘No, it’ll do you good, honestly.’
I let the birds in the free-flight aviary flutter around my head as I let go of the thoughts I couldn’t get under control. I stared at the spectacled bear for a long time, and she calmed my anxiety somehow. These days, I wouldn’t set foot in a zoo of captive animals and wild children, but that’s a discussion for another day, and right then, it was what I needed. I thank those creatures for their service.
Later, while Husband took his camera to capture the wild architecture of Chester Cathedral, I went to Pret with headphones and notebook and made a list of the things that had made the day good and therefore might conceivably make life worth living. I still have the note entitled September 7th:
Okay, so it’s just music and food, and a book and a podcast, but it was enough to bring me back from the brink. I couldn’t have survived until New Year.
All this is only to say, Do It Now. Or do something you’ve already begun.
The thing I really want to do is catch up on my reading. I’m about twenty years behind because there was a long period when I struggled to read fiction for both complicated and simple reasons. I started reading novels again in 2015, so you’d think I might have caught up by now, but there are so many books and so little time.
Over the last year, I’ve become obsessed with trawling second-hand bookshops and charity shop bookshelves. I’ve amassed quite a library of my favourite writers and ones I am curious about – brilliant writers I have ‘discovered’ in recent years who have written too many books.
I’ve caught up with Clare Chambers, Emily St John Mandel and Ruth Ozeki. I’ve made a big dint in Ian McEwan’s bibliography, but I’m not done yet. I’m chasing Sarah Waters and Patrick Gale – they are too good, and I got a late start. Even my all-time favourite, John Irving, didn’t fare well after my fallow period, and I am yet to complete him. (I’ve been halfway through Son of the Circus for a very long time.)
And there are so many books. Recent novels that could be comps for my own. Or just enjoyable reads. I’ve done Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Lessons in Chemistry, Trespasses, In Memoriam and Girl, Woman, Other, but Strange Sally Diamond and Tom Lake mock me from the bookshelf, unread, and The Bee Sting and Sorrow and Bliss sit with bookmarks stuck halfway for months.
I doubt I will ever read all the books I’ve acquired, nor the ones on my extensive Borrowbox lists (I have membership with both Lancashire and Manchester Libraries for optimum choice), but I’m having a go.
December has been an excellent reading month for me. I’m not sure why, but I’ll take it as a win. With a week still to go, I’ve read Cursed Bread, Our Wives Under the Sea, Mother’s Boy, Free Love, Normal People and Machines Like Me. And I’m halfway through new festive favourite Love, Christmas – short stories by my fellow Litopian, Claire Gallagher . I’m bragging because it feels like a big achievement for me. Habit change guru and prolific bookworm Gretchen Rubin probably reads that much before breakfast, but few of us could even dream of being so productive.
Gretchen Rubin’s 2025 challenge is for everyone to Read 25 in ’25 – to read for twenty-five minutes each day of 2025. I’m ahead of you there, Gretchen, and my New Year resolution is a total cheat because I am already doing it. In fact, I’m likely to read less in January. But that doesn’t alter my intention. And if I do slack off, I can redouble my efforts on March 6th or any day of the year.
My other resolutions are the same as always with annual failed intentions…
…and more-or-less-achieved year-round goals:
I fell out of the habit of listening to Gretchen Rubin’s podcast (and podcasts generally). Time being limited, I’d rather be writing or listening to audiobooks these days. It would be an exaggeration to say her wisdom saved my life, but in a combined effort with Neil Young, Chrissie Hynde and David Sedaris, she was instrumental in picking me up that September day. Maybe I should resolve to listen to her again.
‘Things that can be done at any time are often done at no time,’ says Gretchen, which is why dates like January 1st are important for setting our objectives. This runs contrary to my favourite aphorism, ‘Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow’ (Mark Twain), but I’m nothing if not a contradiction.
So, my motto for 2025 is Do It Now. Or not. It’s up to you. And I may well have dropped that motto by February, so don’t hold me to it.
Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Tell me about them in the comments below. I promise, I won’t hold you to anything.
If you’re looking for a podcast to help you with habit change, try Happier With Gretchen Rubin. It was good in 2019, and I believe she’s still going strong.
---
My Resolution (Or a List of Books)
As the old year comes to a close, I think about things I am grateful for and about fostering good habits for the new year ahead. Which is ridiculous, I know. Why should the day after the thirty-first of December have any more significance for gratitude or self-improvement than, say, March 6th or September 7th? If you want to make a positive change or be thankful for the good things in life, just do it. Do it now.
March 6th happens to be the birthday of one of my characters, but I mention September 7th because on this date in 2019, after a prolonged period of low mood that found me circling the drain of full-blown depression, I made a resolution. It was hardly anything at all, no action, just a decision not to drown.
A hideous week at work, ending late on a Friday night feeling hopeless in a dark and stormy carpark, gave way to a gloriously sunny Saturday and found me waking from the deepest sleep I had had in months. Husband decided on a trip to Chester Zoo.
‘What am I, like ten years old?’
‘No, it’ll do you good, honestly.’
I let the birds in the free-flight aviary flutter around my head as I let go of the thoughts I couldn’t get under control. I stared at the spectacled bear for a long time, and she calmed my anxiety somehow. These days, I wouldn’t set foot in a zoo of captive animals and wild children, but that’s a discussion for another day, and right then, it was what I needed. I thank those creatures for their service.
Later, while Husband took his camera to capture the wild architecture of Chester Cathedral, I went to Pret with headphones and notebook and made a list of the things that had made the day good and therefore might conceivably make life worth living. I still have the note entitled September 7th:
- Waking up from a good sleep
- Breakfast of toast with pear and apple spread
- A sunny day at Chester Zoo
- Sitting in Pret with a diet coke and a Bakewell slice and listening to Gretchen Rubin’s Happier podcast
- A new song by Neil Young (Milky Way)
- The new Chrissie Hynde LP (Valve Bone Woe)
- David Sedaris Theft by Finding
Okay, so it’s just music and food, and a book and a podcast, but it was enough to bring me back from the brink. I couldn’t have survived until New Year.
All this is only to say, Do It Now. Or do something you’ve already begun.
The thing I really want to do is catch up on my reading. I’m about twenty years behind because there was a long period when I struggled to read fiction for both complicated and simple reasons. I started reading novels again in 2015, so you’d think I might have caught up by now, but there are so many books and so little time.
Over the last year, I’ve become obsessed with trawling second-hand bookshops and charity shop bookshelves. I’ve amassed quite a library of my favourite writers and ones I am curious about – brilliant writers I have ‘discovered’ in recent years who have written too many books.
I’ve caught up with Clare Chambers, Emily St John Mandel and Ruth Ozeki. I’ve made a big dint in Ian McEwan’s bibliography, but I’m not done yet. I’m chasing Sarah Waters and Patrick Gale – they are too good, and I got a late start. Even my all-time favourite, John Irving, didn’t fare well after my fallow period, and I am yet to complete him. (I’ve been halfway through Son of the Circus for a very long time.)
And there are so many books. Recent novels that could be comps for my own. Or just enjoyable reads. I’ve done Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Lessons in Chemistry, Trespasses, In Memoriam and Girl, Woman, Other, but Strange Sally Diamond and Tom Lake mock me from the bookshelf, unread, and The Bee Sting and Sorrow and Bliss sit with bookmarks stuck halfway for months.
I doubt I will ever read all the books I’ve acquired, nor the ones on my extensive Borrowbox lists (I have membership with both Lancashire and Manchester Libraries for optimum choice), but I’m having a go.
December has been an excellent reading month for me. I’m not sure why, but I’ll take it as a win. With a week still to go, I’ve read Cursed Bread, Our Wives Under the Sea, Mother’s Boy, Free Love, Normal People and Machines Like Me. And I’m halfway through new festive favourite Love, Christmas – short stories by my fellow Litopian, Claire Gallagher . I’m bragging because it feels like a big achievement for me. Habit change guru and prolific bookworm Gretchen Rubin probably reads that much before breakfast, but few of us could even dream of being so productive.
Gretchen Rubin’s 2025 challenge is for everyone to Read 25 in ’25 – to read for twenty-five minutes each day of 2025. I’m ahead of you there, Gretchen, and my New Year resolution is a total cheat because I am already doing it. In fact, I’m likely to read less in January. But that doesn’t alter my intention. And if I do slack off, I can redouble my efforts on March 6th or any day of the year.
My other resolutions are the same as always with annual failed intentions…
- To play more music. My guitar and banjo are gathering dust, and I haven’t sung a note in years. I can no longer blame this on depression. It’s just sheer bloody laziness. I should at least write one more song before I die.
- To tidy my bedroom. For fuck’s sake, you are a middle-aged woman living like a teenager!
- To concede that the damn novel is finished, stop tinkering, and send it to some agents who won’t be interested.
…and more-or-less-achieved year-round goals:
- write every day
- exercise most days
- sleep well
- only eat food worth the calories
- maintain my twenty-four-year sobriety
- and don’t kill anyone (this should be on everyone’s list, but it’s more vital for those of us with prescribing responsibilities).
I fell out of the habit of listening to Gretchen Rubin’s podcast (and podcasts generally). Time being limited, I’d rather be writing or listening to audiobooks these days. It would be an exaggeration to say her wisdom saved my life, but in a combined effort with Neil Young, Chrissie Hynde and David Sedaris, she was instrumental in picking me up that September day. Maybe I should resolve to listen to her again.
‘Things that can be done at any time are often done at no time,’ says Gretchen, which is why dates like January 1st are important for setting our objectives. This runs contrary to my favourite aphorism, ‘Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow’ (Mark Twain), but I’m nothing if not a contradiction.
So, my motto for 2025 is Do It Now. Or not. It’s up to you. And I may well have dropped that motto by February, so don’t hold me to it.
Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Tell me about them in the comments below. I promise, I won’t hold you to anything.
If you’re looking for a podcast to help you with habit change, try Happier With Gretchen Rubin. It was good in 2019, and I believe she’s still going strong.
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