Travel more: Call me predictable, but any plans I make at new year, without fail, invariably involve travel. When I came back from Peru, the thrill of seeing the stamps in my passport made we want to rush off and fill all the pages. I resolved that 2011 would be the year I undertook more overseas travel. My plans have been tempered slightly by work commitments which mean it’s unlikely I’ll be able to take the extended period of leave I had planned for this year. So those plans have moved into 2012. In the meantime, there are irons in the fire and plans underfoot to take some trips in 2011.
Read some books: Reading is one of my favourite past-times and it’s rare that I don’t have a book ‘on the go’. My house is full of books, I have bookshelves heaving with them, many of which I haven’t read in over a decade or indeed have never read at all. Books such as the ones I studied for 'A' level and haven’t read since, D H Lawrence and Thomas Hardy being two such writers, or the books I’ve tried and failed to complete on more than one occasion, Catch 22 being one such example. So, among my plans for this year, I aim to rediscover the authors, stories and characters that have lain dormant on my bookshelves for too long.
Regain control: I have a senior management role in a third-sector organisation that over the past few years has had a tendency to become all consuming. I travel for extensive periods, often spending several days at a time working in London, leaving home early in the morning and getting home late at night. It makes it difficult to have a social life. Or to enjoy even simple things like cooking dinner or going out in the evenings, or doing things around the house. Weekends become precious commodities that often end up with me doing housework. So this year, I am going to regain control. I’m going to learn to say no, make the most of my weekends, do those little projects that have been on the back-burner for months and fret less about things I can’t change. I still have to work, and no doubt I will still be travelling extensively, but with better planning, it doesn’t need to take over.
All in all, they seem like relatively simple plans and pretty achievable. In fact I’ve already started on a couple of them. On New Year's Eve, I booked a flight to Dublin and will be heading over for the Film Festival in February. So that’s one thing to look forward to. And, I've booked tickets to see Elbow in March so that’s another thing to look forward to. Oh yes, and I’m heading back to Glastonbury in June. So that’s three things. I’ve also started reading The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins, a book on the aforementioned list. Four things. No doubt, the next few days will continue to be a bit of a struggle – I’ve done too much sofa-surfing over the festive season for the return to ‘normality’ not to feel painful for a little while longer. But it’s only January and already there are things in the diary, opportunities to seek out and new adventures to have. So now I’m over the shock, I am going to start as I mean to go on and get out there and enjoy it. Starting now.
"Let go of the past and go for the future. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined." (Henry David Thoreau)