What does it mean, for me, to live well this year?[1] I find myself coming back to basics: things close to me that I have the most influence (really trying hard not to say control here) over. I cannot predict or influence the spread of covid, but I can do the following:

1. Recommit to sleep and meditation: one of my life rules is “Sleep Over Everything,” and lately I’ve been letting that get away from me. Getting up early to read or write or work or whatever, and then just not being my best later in the day. When I let myself get out of control schedule-wise, this happens. So today I’m recommitting to sleep. This goes well with meditation, which is one of the things that (a) makes me happier, more effective, and generally improves my life but also (b) is the first thing I give up in a “busy” day (busy=out of control). I absolutely can make time for both, every day.
2. Listen to my body: In December I pulled a muscle in my back trying to lift our puppy’s crate. I ignored this, kept working out, and aggravated it pretty horribly. By Christmas I could barely get out of bed without pain. I finally paid attention to this, stopped working out, started icing and heating and stretching and I’m close to a full recovery at this point (I’ve been able to do some yoga and pilates this week…). No regrets, great lesson to learn, let’s not do that again.
3. Eat more Taco Bell[2]
4. Do less work alone: Something I’ve learned about myself in the last few years is that while I am an introvert, and love to do many activities that require being alone, I do not want to spend more than 50% of my time working alone. Now, I’m picky about collaboration partners, and I can be particular in how I want to work…but I’ve had this recent experience that changed the way I thought about myself and work: I was mostly working alone from June-December, and then two new people joined our team. And it has felt like a different job in the best possible way. Problems that feel intractable or annoying, when collaborating, lose all of that weight. Just this morning I had a planning meeting I was dreading because the project felt kind of pointless and/or impossible, and now we have something I’m actually excited about doing. This is a long-winded way of saying: I want to be intentional about collaboration and making sure that it’s always present in my work, despite my reclusive tendencies.
5. Be present and intentional in as many moments as possible: A mentor asked a great question yesterday: What does it mean to be with our body where it is, rather than where the mind is? Sometimes it feels like great questions lightly slap you in the face, and I felt that beautiful sting here. As I’ve told others and tried to tell myself, the only thing you ever have is the present, you can’t really touch the past or the future, so it makes sense to spend time there. On a personal note, spending too much time in the past for me usually involves a deep regret spiral. Too much time in the future means anxiety. As Oasis once wrote[3], Be Here Now.

What would you add?

[1] The more negative formulation: thrive in intermittent covid

[2] Yes, I realize you could read #’s 2 and 3 as being in conflict, but hear me out. More, in this case, means more than once. And, sometimes, when I listen to my body, it says: cheesy gordita crunch.

[3] Not really. I mean, it was a the disappointing follow-up to What’s the Story Morning Glory?, but they did not originate the phrase.