On January

There’s a common sensibility that January, being the beginning of a new year, is a time for change. Certainly we have the culture of New Year’s Resolutions, but I suspect that tradition is the result of a feeling - a chance at new beginnings, a hope that this time I will do better. It’s an opportunity to reflect on both successes and mistakes, aligned with the spinning rock we live on and all the cycles that come with that. The attempt to grow is to me a necessary part of being human, and if you find that statement a bit of a stretch then it is at least a very admirable goal.

But January is the wrong month for change.

I’m sure this opinion is influenced primarily by the geography in which I live. For those in parts of the world where January is a summer month, or where temperatures are generally moderate year-round, this may not resonate with you. But for me January is the month of the most bitter cold, where venturing outside requires donning garments to cover every part of your body. Once suited up I may be safe from the elements, but not without discomfort. And still there are other challenges to deal with like shoveling, slipping on ice, and poor road conditions. None of these are unsurmountable, but they do add a certain amount of friction to most daily activities.

It’s not that I simply dislike winter weather - having grown up near Chicago, I find it’s a cozy time of year and I’m well-acclimated. I’d probably not enjoy living somewhere without snow and cold weather because it is a significant and important part of the year for me. It’s just a bad time of year to try new things or make major changes to one’s life. January is a month where I like to hunker down and simply survive. There are few social expectations, which is both welcome and necessary after Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve celebrations. The increasingly longer days are still far too short and dark, meaning energy and happiness are also lacking. What else am I to do but operate in maintenance mode?

My usual January tradition involves very little activity. Hyperfixating on a video game is a great use of time - games that push my PC to its limit mean it doubles as a space heater (energy efficient!). Maybe I’ll start a little project here or there, something I can do at home and with relatively little fuss. But goals? Resolutions? Long-term plans of any kind? These are best saved for a different version of me.

Of course, these are my beliefs and in practice I’m not unaffected by the draw of new beginnings. For a long while I eschewed the idea of New Year’s Resolutions given how arbitrary the date was (each day is the beginning of another 365 days, after all). As I’ve grown older, I have better understood how hard it is to implement changes in your life, and having a definitive moment to do so is as good an opportunity as any. Last year I set some fairly loose goals around reading more as well as trying to journal and track my habits more. I managed to read quite a bit although I’m hoping to exceed that again this year. I journaled extensively for a few months and then forgot about it.

And of course I’m writing this on my 1-day-old blog at the very beginning of January and thinking of if I should set some sort of goal to write 1 blog post a week. Knowing myself, I would fall well short of this goal even if I meet it for 5-10 weeks in a row. I’m not sure yet what will be my month-long hypyerfixation. Will I dump hours into my first Mass Effect playthrough? Or will I pick up an old favorite like Stardew Valley for the 100th time? I try not to prescribe anything to myself, and simply seek out whatever is compelling in the moment, but I have to occupy myself somehow. After all, it’s hard to spot any aliens in this wintry weather.