I’ve been pretty ambitious with my New Year’s resolutions over a lifetime. One year, I pledged to become fluent in Italian and learn to salsa. It was, clearly, absurd.
Those things can take years to master. In 365 days, I barely learned to order a pizza and didn’t put a single red dress on to dance.
I’ve also, over the years, secretly made promises to myself about excessive exercise regimes, diets, dress sizes and other appearance-related goals.
It’s all been a great silliness really, and never truly inspired me to actually improve my life or increase my happiness. I’ve lost interest and maybe hope in the whole concept of the New Year’s resolution.
We so often get it wrong when we’re choosing our dreams at the beginning of January. We’re too bold or too self-loathing or too determined to change ourselves (when really we’re enough as it is). But I’m starting to think it might be quite a lovely, convenient opportunity to do something good.
Might I make a small suggestion? Pick something that could improve your health, without having to restrict or deny yourself anything.
Something that pushes kindness and love into the world and probably makes the people around you feel happier. A resolution that might actually improve your opinion of yourself, too.
Make 2020 the year you prioritise your friendships.
They’re arguably our most tenuous genre of relationship, whereas we’re biologically tied to our family and legally bound to our romantic partner (as well as by love, obviously).
Friendships can easily fall by the wayside when life gets busy, when we focus on our careers, have kids, get married, look after our parents or get otherwise waylaid by circumstance.
According to Campaign To End Loneliness, an organisation that works to do exactly what their title suggests, just under half of adults in the UK report their hectic lifestyle as the reason they’ve stopped connecting with people.
It frightens me, how easy it is to lose touch with people.
A few failed attempts to return calls here, a handful of WhatsApps left on read there – that’s how it starts. Before long, friends have been de-prioritised, regular meet-ups stop and we forget just how important friends are to us.
Loneliness is one of the great scourges of our time. It can be extremely isolating, miserable and dangerous. It makes us more prone to all sorts of ailments, like depression and anxiety, and some studies suggest it can lead to increased risk of cancer and stroke.
It’s also, let’s be honest, just an unpleasant way to feel. The only way to really protect ourselves from it is to actively, generously invest time and energy and love into our friendships.
I’d like to suggest we all commit to trying to be better friends in 2020. By doing it for 365 days maybe we will all continue to be better friends, always and forever, or simply whenever we can.
Little changes go a long way with friendships – picking up the phone and actually having a chat rather than messaging, for instance.
For phone-phobes, upgrade from messages to a detailed, hearty voice memos that give a proper insight into your life and your feelings – ask for one in return, too.
Leave the office on time and actually make time for a social life, and if you’re in a new city, go to an event of some sort a book club, a netball game, a pub quiz – and see if you can’t meet someone new.
If you’ve moved away from your old friends, find a way back to them, whether that’s physically going to where they live or communicating long-distance.
One of the easiest ways to neglect a friend is to fall in love. Suddenly you want to spend all your time with your romantic partner to the detriment of friends. This January why not reach out to someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time. If you were nasty and want forgiveness, ask for it.
I’m going to actively maintain my long-distance friendships in 2020, mainly by exchanging lengthy, rambling voice memos several times a week so that I can hear my friends’ voices and they can hear mine.
I’m going to see some people I haven’t seen properly in a long time, mainly because of geography, and hope that I can just pick those friendships up where we left off.
I want to be conscious, all year long, of anyone I think may be lonely. I’m going to talk to my neighbours. I’m going to, dare I say it, speak to people on public transport.
2020 is going to be a friendly year for me. May it be the same for you.
For more information of Campaign To End Loneliness’ Be More Us campaign, visit the website.
MORE: What to do if you find yourself in a mental health crisis over New Year’s
MORE: 10 New Year’s resolutions to look after your mental health in 2020
MORE: How to live with your friends and not fall out
source https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/02/new-years-resolution-better-friend-11980458/
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