Happy New Year

Often, the best parts of a video game are early on. You enter a new world with zero baggage and a full mag. The narrative holds your hand as you explore every nook and cranny not wanting to miss anything. But as the brass rains down, you start to notice your quest or to-do list getting longer, the lore getting deeper. That NPC up ahead expects you to know he was the general that survived the unsurvivable and this is the big reveal. Meanwhile Miss Muffin still needs her 5 eggs so you can get a plus one sweater that might be better than your plus two undershirt. Or is it? Now you gotta dig into the tables to figure out whether slashing or bludgeoning is better.

And set bonuses.

General Unsurvivable’s ring sounded cool ten mags ago, but now it’s just giving you plus five health because it matches your belt. Do you get a better ring or keep wearing it till you can get the matching girdle and have all your skills hit epic?

Decisions upon decisions.

If you let up for even a minute, you go back into that game lost as fuck. Why do I have this shitty ring? click Wait, that girdle looks cool, but only +5 health? Oh wait, that fucking ring I sold! Suddenly, you just want to start over. Get back to where every piece of loot is valuable, every encounter new.

The fresh, freeing feeling of a new world.

That’s what the New Year is supposed to be – a restart. You played the game all year only to get worn down by the grind before the finish line. You just want to wake up Jan 1^st with that full mag and empty pack waiting to be filled.

But it doesn’t work like that.

All your shit is still there, all your loose, dead, and forgotten ends. Projects started, stopped, half-assed into something acceptable so you can walk past it while keeping your dignity. Relationships, debts, and the eternal list that demands you suddenly think you have time for. The New Year comes with the expectation that you magically have more energy and time.

You don’t.

So what do you do? More grinding is an answer, everything ends eventually. But moreover, people generally respond well to some degree of change. It’s integrating change into an overbooked life that’s the challenge. Do you have an extra hour every day?

“Sure I do, Will. That hour on the couch.”

Let me be clear: Couch hour is NOT extra. It is built in; dare I say, foundational. Do not fuck with your down time. Sacrifice somewhere else.

One way is to buy time. Hire someone to do that chore you don’t like. Shop online, plan ahead to save an hour driving to home depot. Hand your kids money for the movies instead of making today a learning lesson and quality time moment.

Pay for your hour of change.

And here’s the important part. Once you get it …

Protect it.

Use it.

Put it into the thing you want to change. Relationships, hobbies, job searches, house hunting, education, wellness. Because if you don’t, someone will take it from you. You’ll hire the lawn guy and someone will say, “Hey, now that you’ve got a minute can you …”

Know why?

Cuz they all want change too. The difference is that they can’t do it alone.

But you can.