A Year of Balance
As a goal-oriented person, I often spend the time around New Year’s thinking about what I want to accomplish in the year ahead.
Sometimes, it’s simple - like when, two years ago, I decided to stop putting off my long-term dream of planning a trip to New Zealand with a tour company I picked out in high school and money that came from as far back as my first-ever job (selling pretzels at Auntie Anne’s in a mall). I figured out a myriad of complicated details and purchased a ticket that spring, eleven months before the trip.
But other times, like this year, it can feel complicated.
When I was a teenager, I used to describe the daily cycles of obsessions and compulsions as a pendulum where I was constantly swinging between feeling okay one moment and panicking the next.
After years of hard work, my days are less tumultuous, but that doesn’t mean that feeling doesn’t happen at all. And when they do, I struggle to feel valid in needing help for these panicky moments when I am not nearly as susceptible as when I was younger.
I’ve come to realize that life can also send these huge ups and downs in other forms - and I don’t think I’ve ever had as much of a roller coaster year before.
The beginning of 2023 included the best three weeks of my life in New Zealand - something that I can’t exaggerate the importance of in the face of Nana’s near-immediate illness, decline, and death. I gained and lost friends and romantic interests, moved to a new apartment, underwent a major career change, embarked on (and completed most of) a nearly 2,000-mile walking challenge, and started intensive work in therapy the likes of which I haven’t done in years. With all of this happening at once, I sometimes feel like setting a big goal is an insurmountable task.
I think that’s why, when Mom sent me a silly link about a superstition of choosing an underwear color to represent your goals for the new year, I immediately gravitated towards the one that symbolized control over one’s life.
My therapist and I talk a lot about how, as someone whose brain works the way it does, I feel the need to control certain elements of my life in order to feel calm. This is even more important than ever when there’s so much going on that I can’t control.
I can’t control what life throws at me, whether that means complicated things like health or simpler things like plans messed up by the weather. I can’t control other people’s goals for me or how well I perform compared to standards set by society. I can’t control how quickly I can learn a new task at work, try a new food, or reach a therapeutic milestone.
All I can do is try my best at whatever’s in front of me, something I have put a ton of extra effort into this past year. And it occurs to me that I might be happier and able to tackle some of the larger tasks if I don’t set specific goals for myself that have to be done by a deadline that I’ll feel bad if I miss. With everything that’s been going on, it can be my goal to simply stabilize and start the new year on a more even keel.
For 2024, instead of a series of complicated goals, I’m going to keep my resolutions to a single word: balance.
This doesn’t mean I won’t keep working on the things that matter to me, like finding a publisher for my book or continuing to expand my social life. Instead, it means that I’m going to amend my usually ambitious goals to be part of a balanced life instead of taking over it entirely.
For example, instead of forcing myself into a large writing challenge like National Novel Writing Month to get back into writing (something I always find hard after a major life struggle like losing Nana), I’ve started writing fiction and fantasy for five minutes a day - something that will grow organically when I’m ready.
I’m going to keep walking after my giant challenge is done, but spending two-plus hours a day exercising has taken away from other pieces of my life that I’d love to get back, like video games.
And in that vein, I’m not going to be aiming for “completionist” goals in my games, or even starting the year by playing anything overly complicated. Instead, I’ve started “Bear & Breakfast,” a calm game where I play as a bear managing a series of decrepit inns in the forest, and I don’t have to complete any checklists or race anyone to the finish line.
Looking at my life in terms of balance also means using my creativity to find ways around inevitable problems like Nana not being able to be the first person to call me on my birthday next week - to help with this problem, I’m going to play a birthday voicemail of hers from years ago at midnight so I can feel like she’s still the first call.
Even though there’s so much I can’t control, I’m optimistic that finding a balance between various areas of my life will help me feel like my life is a steady boat on a calm sea, able to weather the waves that come along thanks to increased flexibility and creativity.
Michelle Cohen, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.