Cosmic Night Owl

Resolutions for 2020

Coping with the Reality of, well, Reality

Buongiorno, my fellow night owls! I hope you all have had a decent start to a brand new year and a brand new decade. You may think I’ve been in hibernation these past couple of weeks (I only wish), but in reality, life’s been pretty busy for me. Between scouting for a new place to live, packing up, moving into my boyfriend and I’s first apartment, and getting settled in, I haven’t had a lot of time to go to the movies or finish a good book. So I didn’t have much to talk about for a little over a month. 

But since things are getting back to being steady, I’m ready to get back in the game. The movie-loving, book-binging, random rambling game. Though instead of starting 2020 with a standard review, I wanted to kick off by sharing with you all a few resolutions I’ve come up with. Normally, I’m not much of a New Year’s resolution type of girl. Whenever I do make them, I tend to follow them for two months then throw in the towel. Over the past several years, however, I’ve found myself struggling with how to cope with the real world- how to comprehend it, how to live with it, how to deal with the mental and emotional strain the state of the world’s unpredictable chaos puts on my shoulders. So I put together a couple of coping mechanisms that I think will help make things easier for here on out. And I wanted to share them with you on the off chance that you might find some value in them as well. If you do, great. If you think it’s a load of crap, great. Frankly, I don’t care.

The first coping mechanism involves reminding myself of a very important fact: The world is a dumpster fire; it always has been and always will be. Social media and advances in technology have allowed us to be hyper aware of the evils of the world on a day-to-day, hour-noon-and-night basis. If you allow yourself to get completely consumed by the global woos of the internet showcases, it’s easy to believe the current state of the world is the worst it’s ever been. I can’t say that people who believe this to be the case are wrong, though I will go on the defense and argue that bad things will always happen. Evil has existed since the dawn of time, and will continue to exist somewhere in the world. Humans no longer have the luxury of ignorance. But goodness is eternal as well, no matter how much the media tells you otherwise. We just need to take more notice of it. I say this to myself at least once each day. Weirdly enough, it helps me retain a stable peace of mind.

Strategy number two involves a bit of research. Everyone knows history often repeats itself. When you look deeper into the details, you’ll also understand that we in the present aren’t alone in suffering. Human beings have struggled with a whole spectrum of hardships, and a number of these hardships continue to this day. Reading up on the past has put things into perspective for me on an existential scale. It’s reassuring to know that our ancestors have struggled just as much as we have. And if you ever feel alone in your struggles, know that that is not the case.

The third and final method for calming my anxiety is to feed my mind in the present to prepare for the future. I try to do something new every day- watch new episodes of a TV show, watch a new movie, do a new exercise at the gym, go to new events on the weekends, etc. These new things are usually miniscule. I’m not one to drop everything and go on grand adventures- mainly because I don’t have the money to do so. I prefer smaller, more simplistic experiences. No matter what I do, I vow to spend this year- as well as the 2020s in general- nurturing the mind, body and soul by educating myself and by being more willing to have new experiences. And the more I’m able to learn from the present, the greater prepared I’ll be for the future. 

While I thought long and hard about these resolutions, only time will tell whether they’ll stick or not. At the end of the day, my coping strategies serve the most important goal for this new era- to live comfortably, happily and healthily. To live well without letting the crushing weight of all the world’s problems overwhelm me. All I can do is try, and if any of you reading this hasn’t yet, I hope that you discover your own unique way to live comfortably, healthily and happily.