I usually pick something that I want to focus on for the coming year. The past couple have gone by in a blur of COVID and other issues so I haven’t put as much attention towards them as I’d like. Last year, I wanted to watch more films as a way of getting back my attention and returning to a lost love, but I failed miserably. This year I am picking something more important to me than ever before, I feel like I’m getting old, so my theme this year is slower.

I have always given myself a hard time for resting and relaxing, even though it’s an essential part of life. Feeling as if I am wasting my time by playing games or simply doing nothing, but it is making me ill. Since my serious health issues of early 2022 I have begun creeping back into my old ways of being constantly on the move and not giving myself time to recover. As I published before “Stillness is the only indicator of when I am really ill” but that will be no more.

I need to give myself space to breathe and be alone with my thoughts more often. Leading to better decisions, retaining more information and much less mental stress. Far from being lazy, I have already discovered that slowing down actually allows me to do be more active when I need to be and achieve more whilst doing it. I have plans next year to finally run my return marathon, so I will need all the rest and recuperation I can get, but this slowness goes much deeper than just giving my body time to recover.

By being slower at everything, the quality of what I am doing will improve, whether that be designing something at work or writing a blog post. It will save me work in the long run in revisions and correcting silly mistakes. Moving fast and breaking things only goes so far. The last thing I want to do is break myself, and in 2023 slowness is the key.