February Letter 2025
Why truly living your one wild and precious life might be simpler than you think, and other thoughts
Last month I said I wasn’t going to make any New Year resolutions, that annual pledge-making to no-one in particular that runs out of steam about precisely now. However, prompted by the shock of a whole month of 2025 already passing, I’ve decided instead to commit to doing 4 key things for myself every month. And by commit, I mean scheduling them into my diary. In ink.
Because what gets scheduled, gets done.
I’m doing this too because I have a deep sense that I really need to make this year count. Not that others haven’t. I think it’s more that I feel ‘the work’ has to now bear fruit. I’ve done enough practice. I’ve had the hypnotherapy! The time is now. My actions must be focused, goals clear, responses considered, my voice heard. So here are my four things (to note, to an extent I do these already, but haphazardly. The difference will be in scheduling them)…
An Organisation Day: this is when I will ‘do’ paperwork. It may all be dutifully clipped to a clipboard (see Chapter 4 of my book), but it is still often ignored for longer than is necessary. I will make a day to book those appointments, schedule the MOT, call around for a lower quote, do my accounts. These are the sort of things that nag at your subconscious and drain your energy when not done. So let’s get them done in a dedicated day (may need a few for Feb. Bit of a backlog!).
An Exploration Day: It’s so easy to get pulled into a routine of school runs, supermarket shops, ferrying children to clubs, cooking, cleaning, working etc and then come the weekend all I want to do is nothing. But when do I explore? For sure if meeting up with friends I’ll suggest a new restaurant or pub, but inspired by recent travels, I want to schedule in a day purely for myself to wander at will in my local neighbourhood. Time expands when you discover new things, and sometimes you really don’t have to travel that far to find them.
A Reconnection Day: No matter how busy, I will ensure at least one day a month I’ve reached out to someone I haven’t spoken to in a while, I’ll visit my sister, or have a coffee with an acquaintance. It’s frightening how fast time can fly, but again, new experiences slow time down. And we’ve all read the data on the importance of social connections, yet as we get older we increasingly let these slip.
A Do-Something-New Day: This may overlap with my exploration day, or it might be that I get myself onto a train to London and check out a museum, theatre matinee or exhibition. Maybe I’ll sign up for a life-drawing class! Or check out seminars online. It doesn’t really matter what I do, as long as it’s a bit of a stretch. It may take more planning, but often less than we think. And yet, and yet. No more excuses.
My desire to do this brought to mind the last two lines of Mary Oliver’s famous poem, The Summer Day, where she asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” It echoes my sentiment of wanting 2025 to make ‘it’ all come together so I’m not ‘wasting time’. And yet, despite this being an oft quoted question, if you read the entirety of the poem (copied at the end of this post), I think it asks a more pertinent one a few lines earlier… “Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?”
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I think this is saying — in our age of go-go-go, email, scroll, do, achieve, reply —what makes a productive day? What makes a day well lived? In the poem, the implication is that a summer’s day spend watching a grasshopper is indeed a very good day.
In the words of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, “We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be.”
To be alive. To be peaceful. To be loving.
So when I say I’m wanting 2025 to deliver, it isn’t money or projects or recognition that I’m after (although don’t get me wrong, as a byproduct of what I say next, these would be nice), it’s about truly feeling that I’m living and acting according to my values. In a world where these are readily abandoned for the sake of ease or acceptance, I want to fully commit to mine so that I can finally feel that I’ve aligned who I believe myself to be, with what I can offer to the world, and how I show up to deliver it.
And I write this as someone for whom, when life gets fast (aka receiving too many emails!), I can quickly feel very overwhelmed, knocked around like a ping pong ball reacting to every strike of the bat, rather than being the one holding it. I don’t think I’m alone in this. But as the psychologist Philippa Perry said recently in an interview with The Sunday Times, “Increasingly people seek to pathologist their feelings or behaviours, placing the emphasis on external diagnoses and pharmaceutical solutions rather than internal reflection or behaviour change.” I think she’s right.
Life is challenging, make no mistake. Nonetheless, protecting your peace is not about achieving an absence of strife (or emails), it’s about proactively developing the tools to deal with it. Thus, alongside the practices that I know already work for me (getting outside, meditation, walking, reading, unplugging, taking a bath) I want to challenge myself to do more of what I don’t yet do enough of, hence my 4 things.
So what might you want to do more of to make 2025 meaningful for yourself?
The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Other thoughts…
I am still deciphering what Japan means to me. Its influence and culture have been profound throughout my life, but there’s a lot I suddenly realised I’d got all wrong.
Sometimes I write whole posts but never share them because I understand I just needed to write them for myself in order to work out what I’m feeling.
A quote that seems pertinent: “Maybe you don’t notice your progress because you’re always raising your bar?”
Shikata ga nai: Literally, “It cannot be helped.” A Japanese word that embodies the idea of letting go of what cannot be changed. Realising that some things are out of our control, and that’s ok.
I recently read The Art of Doing Nothing which has helped me appreciate I don’t always need to be ‘obviously achieving’ as what I achieve by doing nothing is far more profound.
This year I have decided I need to learn the art of saying no more often. This is not to upset others or cause problems but to allow me to spend more time being me, walking outdoors, swimming, reading and simply being. ‘Let them’ is also going to be something I want to work harder on, as an infinite people pleaser.