Three years ago, I had an epiphany - the new year is not the new year. By the time the Earth re-circles the sun, I haven’t experienced a full year. It’s only been, what, eight months and three weeks? I’m still missing three months and a week before my full solar cycle. The New Year only applies to the earth and those lucky souls born on January 1st, so New Years day is actually the Earth’s birthday, and everyone around the world celebrates the Earth’s birthday, which is pretty hippie-dippy of us.

I know not everyone likes New Years resolutions, but I do. It’s got that idea of “a new year, fresh start.” A second chance to become a better person or a process of growth that designates a specific day to reevaluate yourself and identify what new steps you need to improve you as an individual. But, it makes more sense for that specific day to happen when I’m experiencing my new year. The day I become one year older. My birthday.

So, three years ago, I started making birthday resolutions. For my new year, I listed what I need to improve to become a better person. My first year of birthday resolutions was very successful. I became a vegetarian and started practicing creative writing. The next year, I worked out every weekend, went to bed at 10pm every night, and stopped being a vegetarian because my hair started falling out and being a vegetarian didn’t fulfill me as a person. Last year was not as successful. My goal was to get a new job, work on more writing projects, increase my work out schedule from every weekend to everyday, and try new recipes while still following my past resolutions. I got a job … but everything else fell apart.

I think my expectations last year were too high since I didn’t realize how much change would come from getting a job. There was no way to go to bed at 10pm every night since there were some nights I didn’t get back home until eleven at night or days where I didn’t get back until ten in the morning. There were days where I was so tired after work that I didn’t want to go to the gym or days where it’d be better for my health to get sleep instead of exercise. Last year, I didn’t succeed because I took on too much, but I wouldn’t say the year was a complete failure.

I got a job! I’ve had jobs before, but this is my first job in a new place. That was a big change for me, and I should be proud of that.

For this year, my birthday resolutions are a little different. My first resolution is the reason I’m writing this and why you can read it. Now that I’m used to job/university life in a new place, I think I can add a new writing project to my list. I’ve had this idea for a while but was hesitant since the genre’s non-fiction. Non-fiction is so so SO much more revealing than other genres and a different style in general. One of my biggest fears is people learning too much about myself, so how the hell did this happen?! I know this is the best way to improve, but it will be so much easier if I can keep this to myself. What am I doing?

My second resolution is also very different since it’s not exactly an action, but it is relevant to why I decided to write this series - I want to become a more positive person. I have developed a bad habit to think negatively about myself thinking that it would help me refrain from my stupidity. That’s neither realistic nor helpful. In the past, I considered this thought pattern to be naive and dishonest, but I’ve learned that it actually depends on your perspective. You can see the situation from a negative stand point and believe it to be the truth, or you can see it in a positive light, and it will still be true because you see it that way. A positive angle can be found somewhere. I want to be better at finding it.

That’s where this comes in. After creating resolutions, it’s good practice to set a way to evaluate how you’re doing. If at the end of the year, this … book? Series? Whatever this is - if this has mostly positive reflections at the end of the year, then I will have succeeded at becoming a more positive person. Also, if I manage to update this at least once a month (I’m aiming to update this once a week, but I want to give myself some wiggle room) then I would have succeeded in starting my new project.

I hope to fill this with lighthearted anecdotes about myself and questions that I constantly think about. Questions that I will need help answering, hence the title. There will be times I go deep because that’s the person I am, but I will try to keep those deep entries mostly optimistic. Hopefully they’re relatable, and the people reading this will enjoy it. Wish me luck on my resolutions!

For the record, the day I upload this is not my birthday. I decided to do this project on my birthday, then wrote a few chapters to build a buffer before uploading. I will probably return to this topic for my next birthday, then you’ll know my real birthday. For now, it’s a secret.