It always gets to this time of year — that is to say, the start of a brand new one — and I wonder how it came around so quickly. It feels like just a second ago that I was bringing in 2023, looking over Sydney Harbour Bridge, fireworks going off like crazy, and having just made a brand new friend on my step-sister's rooftop. It seems like so much has happened since then, and that’s probably because it has. Good things and less good things. But next week that same girl I met on the roof is coming to sleep on our couch for a couple of nights, so you could say things have come full circle.
This year’s New Year’s Eve — the one that happened 3 days ago — was hosted by my lovely, wonderful, gorgeous friends Grace and Alex. Rather than asking about resolutions as we guzzled our negronis and ate one profiterole after another, we instead delved into each other’s Ins and Outs for the year ahead.
Vaping: Out. Fresh pasta: In. Jogging: Out. Bathtime: In.
Trying to figure out what today’s newsletter would be about this morning, I found myself flipping through one of the Penguin Great Ideas books I got Andy for Christmas. This particular one is by the Stoic philosopher Seneca and it’s called On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long If You Know How To Use It. Much like the opening line of this very note, it’s all about the passage of time and has helped me pin down what my own Ins will be this year.
People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.
This is a big one for Seneca, apparently. He talks a lot about all the ways that people wasted their time back in 5 BC-AD 65, and honestly, it bears quite a strong resemblance to how people waste their time today. Listen to this:
One man is gripped by insatiable greed, another by a laborious dedication to useless tasks. One man is soaked in wine, another sluggish with idleness. Another, through hope of profit, is driven headlong over all lands and seas by the greed of trading…
It all sounds terribly familiar, doesn’t it? And it makes me wonder why we all haven’t learnt to spend our lives worrying about the important things like nurturing our friendships and admiring that beautiful tree over there and eating well and loving well and living well.
So that’s my first In for 2024 — focusing on the fundamentals of happiness and not sweating the stuff that we often get tricked into thinking is important, like buying a house as soon as humanly possible or the three faint lines that have appeared on my forehead.
No activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied, since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak, crammed into it.
This line sounds just like what I imagine books like Stolen Focus to be about except that it was written literally two thousand years ago. A fact that makes me feel a little bit better about the state of all of our attention spans because at least it shows that humans have never been that good at focusing on one thing at a time.
One thing at a time. My second In. And a rather ironic one because in the writing of this here piece I have been endlessly distracted by all manner of things, but mostly my phone, that cheeky little devil.
Slowing down and doing one thing at a time is something that I have had to remind myself to do time and time again. Mainly in relation to work, but it also applies to rest. Over the holidays I became totally absorbed by a book that my dad got me for Christmas called Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. It reminded me for the first time in ages how completely enchanting it is to throw yourself into a story and not come up for air until absolutely necessary.
The same could be said for when you’re watching a movie. There’s a reason why going to the cinema and switching your phone off and having no distractions is a completely different experience to spending 30 minutes choosing some trash to watch on Netflix then pretty much just looking at Instagram the entire time.
So that’s In number two. Focusing on what’s in front of me — be it a book or a piece of work or a film or a friend — and avoiding distraction from the other fluff trying to cram its way in.
In terms of Outs, and totally unrelated to dear Seneca, I pretty much stand by all the ones I shared last year except that I would swap out “the word unprecedented” for “being too on the nose”. Let’s all try the tip of the tongue instead.
Very curious to know what all your Ins and Outs are — they’re always such great hot takes, so do let me know!
See you in the next one,
Annabel
Ooooh 'do one thing at a time' is an ongoing mantra of mine that I am trying to apply more assiduously this January!
Also lol at the example cheese slices 😆