Javi didn’t intend to kill a soldier. Arien doesn’t want to be assassinated. So entry-level jobs aboard a cargo freighter provide the best route off planet for a pair of fugitives. Javi also didn’t intend to fall in love with the freighter’s First Mate, Razz Jensen. Arien wants to find Tapuh, their bodyguard and fiance. But when they do, it only leads them to a new destiny they never wanted.So it’s mid February. How are your resolutions going? ‘Fess up – they’re not doing so great, are they? (Neither are some of mine. I’m no paragon.) You’re not alone. Many people’s big plans for the new year have fallen by the wayside by now. The gym is getting quiet again. Dry January got a little…damper than expected. The writing goals went a bit pear shaped in the face of all that great stuff on streaming, or all the new books you got for Christmas. But that doesn’t mean you have to forget about them. As we stare down the barrel of Spring, let’s look at why resolutions fail and how to revive them.
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.
Back in 1966 Stig Gavlén, an advertising consultant, came up with the idea of building a large Yule Goat display to attract people to the local shops and restaurants. On 1 December 1966, the local fire department erected the first Gävle Goat. It was 13-metres high, 7 metres long, and weighed 3 tonnes. Impressive! It stood through to the 31st of December, when a vandal burned it down.