The gap between Christmas and the New Year offers an opportunity for reflection. This is because, for many of us, public holidays stop us working, and the work only really restarts in the New Year.
How we use the time is up to us. If it is our body that has been worked hard, then we can be tempted to lie down for much of the time. If we have been deprived of luxury, then we can be tempted to eat a lot.
But, since this time is placed so conveniently before the beginning of a new year, it’s also a chance to look inside a bit, and see how we might want to organise ourselves in the future. By ‘organise’, I mean both externally and internally. What surroundings will help us to live life as we wish, and what intentions, in our minds, do we want to carry through the next bit of time?
EXTERNAL ORGANISATION
There are so many aspects to external organisation, and most of them we leave to chance. But it’s worth enumerating a few of them, so we can take them into account:
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Supportive accommodation – does the size, type, layout and location of your accommodation reflect your intentions for the future?
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Supportive resources – do you have access to clothing, equipment and other resources that suit your intentions?
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Supportive friendships – which relationships energise and support you? Are you giving them appropriate respect?
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Supportive routines – do you have appropriate routines for your day, which support your intentions?
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Conservative intentions – how do you intend to make provision for self-care in the next year?
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Adaptive intentions – how do you intend to adapt your self in the next year, so you can live better?
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Adoptive intentions – what systems, societies and methods do you want to learn? These can include arts, languages, sciences, activities.
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Creative intentions – what projects and intentions are personal to you for the next year?
SUMMARY
Public holidays bring us an exceptional chance to reflect. We can stop to make sure our world is organised as we would wish.
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We can check we have supportive accommodation, resources, friendships and routines in place
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We can reflect upon our intentions for self-care, self-adaptation, adoption of new skills, and personal projects
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