turning point

reflections on 2023, resolutions for 2024

Happy 2024! One of my new year’s resolutions is to write a blog, and what better start to kick it off than a bit of reflection? Special thanks to Cynthia for keeping me accountable for this goal I’ve had for a long time. 

Looking back

I wanted to start by thinking about the past year, which has been one of exploration for me. If I were to try to describe myself from around a year ago: I came off of a tough junior fall semester where I felt burned out and exhausted. I wanted to take a semester off or otherwise dramatically change my work-life balance and my lifestyle habits. At the time, I wrote in a journal entry that “I couldn’t remember the last time I did something that I really loved” because I felt so busy and jaded all the time. More concerning was not knowing how to change that. I wanted to learn how to have more free time and how to make the most out of it. 

At first, I spent a lot of time with my friends. I had just turned 21 and craved the freedom of bars and clubs. Two friends and I started a tradition of Bar Wednesday, setting aside every Wednesday night to try a new bar and catch up. Those also often transitioned into some memorable late-night-to-early-morning chats. My focus was on having fun, which I did. This past semester was more introspective; I woke up earlier for class, I spent more time alone exploring cafes in Cambridge and Boston, and I dedicated more time to read and journal on my own time. I also logged my time for over a roughly six-week window: 324 hours of sleep, 200 hours of social, 141 hours of classwork, 83 hours of screen time, 46 hours of teaching, and 41 hours of personal hobbies or independent work. Even though these two semesters contrasted quite a bit, they were exactly what I needed to break free from my previous slump.

I’m currently writing this while sitting on a long haul flight, which is usually when I scroll through my old photos to reflect on the past few months. These memories stuck out to me as some of the most memorable of 2023: 

• I’ll always remember 2023 as the year I got to fulfill my traveling dreams. I learned that I love spending time abroad and I love exploring busy cities. The highlights: solo traveling in Hanoi, exploring the maze-like medina in Marrakesh with my roommate, hiking in Madeira with my parents, and driving around Crater Lake with my friends. My flight tracker tells me I flew 28 times over 78,625 miles in 2023. 

• This year I ran two half marathons, a goal I’m proud of because I had never run more than a 5k before 2023. I realized that most of the inertia is just signing up for the race; the training just comes with it. 

• I spent another summer in New York and settled on my post-grad plans! I discovered pockets of the big city for me: neighborhoods I’d want to live in, restaurants I’d want to visit again and again. That helped me find serenity amid all the hustle and bustle. 

• I tried out a bunch of new hobbies for the first time: photography, volleyball, biking, watching football, to name a few. To make space, I set aside hobby time as intentionally as I blocked out work time. 

Goals for the Substack

One of my goals for this Substack is that it’ll become an outlet for me to share some thoughts on the books, movies, podcasts, articles that inspire me. In that direction, 2023 wasn’t been the most productive year of content for me — but I do feel more excited than I ever have before. I’ve found reading deeply meditative, a daily haven for me to slow down my thoughts. I love the spine-tingling awe that I feel after finishing a powerful passage, and the discussions afterwards when I can geek out and gush about it all. All of this feels especially vital to me now because college is such a perfect space to learn broadly, and I want to maintain that curiosity once I start working. 

With that in mind, I’m listing some memorable pieces from the past year in hopes that next year I’ll have so many more. 

• I just spent the last two weeks reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, so I feel obliged to mention that here. Those types of lengthy Russian novels always felt daunting to me, but when else could I devote so much time to one book? Dostoevsky says that the main character, Alyosha, is his hero, and I agree — there’s a lot to learn from him.   

• I was in a bit of a reading slump to start 2023, but Exhalation by Ted Chiang inspired me to start reading again — and to read with more variety. Reading his writing made me envious of how unapologetically he could innovate such creative short stories, building an entirely new world in so few words. 

• My favorite class that I took this year was English 184CF on City Fictions, set on readings about London, Mumbai, New York, and Seoul. And a bunch of those readings really stuck with me: in particular, the short stories “The Embassy of Cambodia” by Zadie Smith and “Street Haunting” by Virginia Woolf gave me a lot of inspiration for writing my own short stories. I also loved Do The Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee. 

• After reconnecting with a high school friend, I started watching more movies this year! Here are some of the ones I can’t stop talking about: Tár, May December, Whiplash, Paddington 2. I’m planning to watch most of the 2023 films before the Oscars in March.

• I’m not as much in a podcast phase these days, but I will still religiously listen to the Ezra Klein Show. I love how he crafts interview prompts to ask questions I didn’t even realize I sought the answers to. His recent few on Israel-Palestine have been incredible and I recommend them to everyone. 

Looking forward

A while ago, I heard some advice about New Year’s resolutions that suggested defining an overarching theme for the year. That way, resolutions are not just specific and one-off goals, but also a North Star, a guiding direction to aspire towards. It’s the opposite of the “actionable goals” advice that is usually applied to New Year’s resolutions, but I’ve never been good about my resolutions anyway. In retrospect, I would’ve named 2023 something like the Year of Free Time. 

For 2024, my theme is the Year of Saying Yes. With only one semester left, I have no doubt that the months will fly by. My hope is that it’ll be an action-packed semester to end college on a high note, the kind you reminisce about at reunions years, even decades later. College is such a spontaneous space; plans can be made with a moment’s notice. My friends are all within a ten-minute radius, which will never happen again. I want to embark on more day trips on random afternoons, branch out into more friends of friends circles, and attend more socials or events, even if I don’t know many people there. I want to worry less and do more, with a carpe diem attitude of approaching each day. That attitude, I hope, will also transition well into post-grad life when I move to New York. So, if you’re looking to do something fun this year, count me in :)

I also have more specific resolutions:

• Part of saying yes to more things is having the energy to take on new experiences — I can think of a bunch of times when I wasn’t in the right mood to leave my room. One habit that really drains my energy is my screen time. To be disciplined, I’ll try charging my phone outside of my room at night so I can start and end my day more peacefully, and impose more thoughtful minutes restrictions on the apps I want to use less.

• College moves so fast! I feel the need to document more of my life because each day is often so jam-packed. I have a film camera that I sporadically use, but my goal is to shoot a few more rolls of film throughout the semester. I’ve recently also started journaling a few times a week, and want to continue that habit into 2024. Those short writing sessions each week, I find, are so important for reflecting. 

• This has been a resolution for as long as I can remember, but I want to write more! I’m taking a Creative Writing workshop this spring on fiction writing, and am so excited to try my hand at something entirely novel. This Substack will also be a new experiment for me!

• I just spent a few weeks back in Dallas over the holidays for the first time in 1.5 years, and am reminded of comforting it is to be at home with family. I want to call my family more, maybe with a regular weekly FaceTime with all four of us. This coming summer will be my last extended time at home for a while, so I want to cherish that. 

• One of my favorite memories from 2023 was spontaneously deciding on a Monday afternoon to bike on the Minuteman trail. Now that I have my own bike, I want to explore more of Cambridge / Boston and generally spend more time outside, taking advantage of when the weather gets nicer. 

I expect that 2024 will be a really significant year, both personally and globally. I feel a lot of apprehension about graduating and starting work, and the idea of plausibly never returning to school again is still intimidating to me. I’ll miss the unstructured free time in college, the density of so many new and thoughtful people, and the latitude to learn about anything I want. But, with these resolutions in mind, I’m also hopeful that I’ll be able to embrace the joys fully and tackle the challenges head-on.