Accentuate the positive

My 2023 resolution - separate from my goals, which have to be SMART, cause I’m that sort of Type A nerd - is to become more hopeful. Which started out as “become less cynical”, but goals and resolutions should always be phrased as a positive admonition to do, not to not do something. (Excuse me, into Yoda turned I have.)

This is sort of an expansion on my last post about me and the Gavle Goat and why it became important to me that the goat did not burn.

2022 was kind of a hard year for me. My dad passed away. And the world was full of grim news all around, as usual. I was far too addicted to doom scrolling on Twitter, watching the world burn and feeling more and more despairing about it all. After the last few years a lot of people feel like their mental health is in a fragile state.

As we go on through 2023 I want to do the following to help me become less cynical and despairing and more hopeful and positive.

• Consume less political news and outrage bait - especially when it’s about countries other than the UK, since I can’t even vote to make a difference to what’s happening there.
• Curate my Mastodon feed carefully, including with filters and muting, so it doesn’t end up full of things that I’m being told to be FURIOUS about. Elon Musk did me a favour, getting me off Twitter and onto Mastodon, which is altogether less toxic. I got myself onto a Romance genre focused Mastodon instance for reasons other than just being a Romance author, so my local feed can generally be a lot less heavy than some others. Focused more on books and writing.
• Actively seek out positive news stories. They’re out there. Good things still happen. They’re just harder to find.
• Have a safe place to go scroll–this is going to be Instagram for me. Literally all I follow on Insta right now  are accounts that post pictures and videos of red pandas - my favourite animal. If I feel that even Mastodon is getting too doomy I’ll just go scroll there for a while. Or maybe go watch some red panda videos on YouTube
• And just generally lean into interests that are more wholesome, or unproblematic. I’ve been doing that with the aforementioned red pandas lately, reading up about them as well as just watching videos of them being adorable! I’ll probably do a blog post about them at some point.
• Be careful what I’m reading or watching. While I’m not going to stick to nothing but fluff, I’m going to mostly avoid stuff with too much death and destruction.
• Enjoy things. Actually mindfully appreciate small simple pleasures in life.
• Do things to help others and be empathetic and trust people. All of those help fight cynical feelings about people in general.
• Continue to practise Stoicism - which I’ve been reading about for a couple of years now. It helped me through the pandemic for sure, learning to deal with what’s not in my control.

I hope by the time we’re getting into 2024 I’ll be feeling a bit more chill - just like this red panda...