my reframe refrain for the new year
the answer is almost always nuance somehow, but i'm still struck by it every time
I always tend to look at the end of December as a time for catching up—with friends who are usually more busy, on movies I’d been hearing about, on hitting my reading goal, on reimposing structure on my own life that I know I’ll slough off by leaving my planner in a corner of my apartment or being okay with breaking my promises and rules for myself in an effort to fulfill promises or rules that belong to others. The idea of genuinely resting, without guilt or distraction, continues to elude me.
I’m not a huge new year’s resolution person for a lot of reasons: a year is long and unpredictable, there’s all these resolutions that feel obligatory and popular that I don’t want to do but feel like I should (exercise more, go on ? number of dates), I want to pretend I am not an avid gulper of the self-optimization kool-aid. The most potent reason, if I’m honest, is that if I achieve my resolution I don’t feel good. I feel like I should have been more ambitious, and if I don’t, I just feel disappointed in myself.
Even as I’ve gotten better about comparing myself to others, I can’t stop moving the goalposts on myself. It’s hard to compare against others as peoples’ lives diverge and I gain a greater understanding of how different everyone’s starting points and priorities and values are. But I always manage to examine my own life and think “if only X” or “what if Y” or “why didn’t I Z.” I don’t give myself enough credit for the A through W that I did accomplish because in hindsight I already did it, the effort and neuroses involved smoothed over in the memory. It’s no longer a matter of achieving more—I’m pretty sure I would be one of those people who got everything she ever wanted and then had an Eat, Pray, Love style crisis because she still felt hollow inside.
The practice of self-compassion is a challenge for most people, myself included. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t also roll my eyes at social media posts about how you should be proud of yourself for just making it through another year. Though I’ve successfully complicated my sense of ambition and achievement, I feel like I added more inputs to the formula but my issue is abiding by a formula for happiness/contentedness/growth (also conflating these is a red flag), expecting input to lead to output, year over year growth inevitable. I want straightforward “If I do these things, I’ll get what I want and my life will add up and make sense.”
I can’t help but fear that being “soft on myself” is somehow weak, that if I don’t keep barreling forward fueled by self-criticism, fear, and anxiety, then I’ll stop moving forward at all. Intellectually, I know that the idea of “forward” needs to be disposed of.
I’d gotten attached to this vision of growing up and getting older as being a refinement of existing features, carving out with increasing certainty who you are and what you want. That isn’t entirely inaccurate; I do feel a greater abundance of clarity in some ways than I did the year before, or the year before that. Unfortunately and fortunately for me, now I think growing up and getting older is actually about releasing yourself from believing you’re a bundle of features that have clear purposes, understanding that who you are always was and always will be amorphous and subjective, that what you want isn’t always what you need or what you wanted last year. Being happy now doesn’t preclude you from pursuing what might be the ingredients of your happiness in the future.
Letting go sounds chill, yet it is so much more uncomfortable than grasping tighter and tighter. And it requires a high level of trust in yourself, in your ability to adapt and absorb and keep going (not necessarily forward).
my non-newsletter writing this year:
reviewed central places by delia cai
reviewed meet me tonight in atlantic city by jane wong
interviewed sarah thankam mathews
reviewed while you were out by meg kissinger
wrote about a few of my chinese american identity neuroses for joysauce
recent media i’ve enjoyed:
the tyranny of in/out lists (personally i just feel like they’re free association exercises?)
adult piano lessons and not grinding your hobbies in capitalism’s wheel
daisy alioto is one of the smartest people in media
“holy revival” by maisie peters!
fundamentals, not tweaks for a good day from one of my faves
e3 of lyz lenz’s divorce podcast is with maggie smith (you’ve prob read her poem good bones)
the film may december on netflix leverages ambiguity and discomfort really well
ameliorative/existential telic/atelic as though we needed more dichotomies
the female founder (derogatory, but not in a sexist way)
this essay gave me chills and also no desire to see the film dogtooth (i did like aftersun)
my favorite books i read this year with my little simplistic descriptions:
homecoming nerves and the realistic downsides of marrying into white upper middle class wealth and fighting with my mom: central places by delia cai (my review here)
i love absurd premises for my short stories: bliss montage by ling ma
complex ptsd, healing, and writing cute notes for everyone i love at my wedding (ideally that’s everyone): what my bones know by stephanie foo
similar to oppenheimer in that it reminded me that science’s greatest discoveries were made by messed up little guys: when we cease to understand the world by benjamin labatut
imagine your parents being disappointed because you aren’t left enough: olga dies dreaming by xochitl gonzalez
hope to view my own youth with the careful reverence that hua can: stay true by hua hsu
the creator economy has been a revolution and we need to examine it as such: extremely online by taylor lorenz (my interview with taylor here)
i’d probably have a breakdown and quit grad school too: chemistry by weike wang
why didn’t me and my friends create an extremely successful creative endeavor: tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by gabrielle zevin
thank you for reading!!! i know i have been in and out this year and i will make no sturdy promises right now about what 2024 holds… but know that i am always grateful for anyone who reads my writing and this newsletter continues to be a special part of helping me to figure out what i want and how to go and do things instead of speculating.
This is basically exactly how I feel about resolutions and all! In between not giving yourself enough credit, rolling your eyes at “you made it!” posts, and fearing disappointment, I definitely saw myself in your writing.