This time of year, I feel like the pundits and self-help gurus do a gajillion think pieces on why you shouldn’t make resolutions in the new year.
But they usually replace “resolutions” with something that’s basically resolutions, but somehow technically different…not resolutions but realizations…not resolutions but attainable goals…not resolutions but systems…etc. etc.
I’m just realizing that if I’m going to do anything this year worth doing, I need to have a list of what I want to do and why I want to do it. I’m a big believer in the “why” of it all. If your why isn’t strong enough, if you can’t imagine a better future, if you can’t picture how a life change will make things remarkably different, you won’t stick with it.
And for me, I need something to aim at. So, I’ll take ’em one thing at a time, one time a day. For one, it’ll give me something to write each day. For another, writing out my “why” will help me understand its importance.
The first thing I want to do this year — MUST do, even — is get off my phone. My screen time this unfinished week is an average of 5 hours, 12 minutes PER DAY. That’s obscene. That’s time I can’t get back. On Tuesday, Dec. 30, I was on my phone for SEVEN HOURS in ONE DAY. That’s a full day’s work. I spent it staring at my screen.
I cannot imagine the number of neurons I killed in that session, can’t imagine how much dumber I came away from that dopamine-fueled haze.
Each year, I set a goal to read 30 books or more. I’ve been doing it since 2014. I can only think of one or two years where I aimed for less, but inevitably, I went above and beyond, sometimes reading more than 40 books for the year.
To be a writer, you have to be a reader. No two ways about it.
This year? I read 18 books. And out of those 18 books, 6 were comic books. I only read 12 novel-length books.
I know I’ve been apathetic. I haven’t been as engaged as I was in the past. I used to enjoy learning, used to love getting engrossed in stories. Now I’m thinking about stories…on Instagram…or reels…or YouTube shorts. I’m a short-form content junky — restless and frenetic.
And if I’m not diving down the rabbit hole of content, I’m playing games. I play Sudoku and this Wood Block Puzzle thing, and every morning, I play Wordle and Bandle. I tell myself it’s to keep my brain sharp, and to an extent, it does. However, it’s more and more hours on my phone, and I’d like to get to where I’m on it maybe an hour or two max per day.
I have a lot of work to get there.
I was thinking about Bo Burnham’s mini-tirade on social media recently. I watched it again today. He’s always been so prescient about social media and its infestation in our lives. This video is three minutes long. It’s worth your time.
Don’t get me wrong…not everything I watch is pointless. I interact with content that is inspiring, encouraging, informative and challenging. But I also see a ton of AI slop, reaction videos, dumb, recycled jokes from content creators, all trying to copy one another, useless violence, political debates, division and general chaos.
I want to be able to focus again — to block out the world and immerse myself in a story, whether fiction or not, that teaches me empathy and makes me look at the world differently.
I want that for myself this year, and it starts with less time affixed to a screen.
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash
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