2023 out, 2024 in
I started writing this as a recap of the “big things” that happened in 2023. There were a few, for sure. I was in a play, I did a podcast interview, I had puppies (ok, my dog had puppies but it was a lot of work for me too,) I moved my blog to a new website, I had a reel hit 9 million views, and had some family events that deserve their own post to explain at some point.
But as I scrolled back through my journal, those things only made up a small portion of my year. At least 340 days were pretty non-eventful. Which leaves me wondering: why do we focus so much of our attention on things that take up so little of our time?
If I look back at each day of the year individually, my best days are the most routine days. Yes, occasionally routine can make me a little restless, but when I get truly anxious and restless is in the seasons when I’m going a million different directions and can’t make time every day for things that matter.
The life I want is not about chasing new adventures and mountaintop experiences; it’s about being anchored in following Jesus through everyday life. If you truly want a life of adventure and excitement that’s great, but I think a lot of us have bought into that dream just because it looks more exciting than delighting in an everyday life.
We watched Lord of the Rings over Christmas, and I can’t help but think this is why so many people love the hobbits. Because while it’s fun to watch the “skilled warrior” types take down dozens of enemies without breaking a sweat, most of us relate more to the hobbits who really just want to go home.
They trek across mountains and fight battles not because they love the adrenaline rush, but because they know if they don’t, they will never again be able to eat seven meals a day and plant gardens and dance and sing whenever they want to. They go on adventures not for the sake of adventure, but for the sake of protecting their ordinary, happy, beautiful lives.
So maybe the “big moments” in life are not important on their own. Maybe they’re important to us only because they’re pivot points that lead to more little moments of joy.
And so I think this idea has been influencing a lot of my thoughts as I make goals for 2024. I always come up with so many goals each year, some big and some small, but this year I did a decent job of paring it down to just a handful to really focus on:
Less daydreaming, more meditating on Scripture. To help with this, I’m planning to memorize Philippians over the course of the year.
Less scrolling, more reading. I’m going to try to set aside intentional blocks of time to engage on social media, and use my “margin time” of five minutes here and there to read instead of scrolling.
Less time inside, more time outside. Over the past few years I’ve taken on a lot of responsibilities that keep me inside, but I’d love to get better about delegating each of those things to a certain time of the day or week and free up the rest of my time to do more outside.
Less time driving, more time at home or close to home. This one’s pretty unique to my situation, but it’s a two-hour round trip to town and I’m tired of making it 2-3 times a week. I love my church community, but I need to find more ways to form community without so much driving.
Less jumping through all the little social media hoops and more writing and creating what I want. I would rather create good content for a small audience than “whatever the algorithm likes this week” for a large audience. I’ll probably share more on this as the year goes on, but this is the baseline goal.
Less focusing on what I want to accomplish and more on who I want to be. (“more like Jesus” would be a good summary.)
(P.S. If you’re a nerd about goal-setting like me you’re probably thinking that these are a little too vague and broad to be good goals, but I do have more specific plans for all of these. This is just the more concise version for sharing purposes 🙂)
What did you love about 2023? And what goals do you have for 2024? Let me know in the comments!