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Evaluation Mood - a New Year State of Mind

Cecilie Conrad·Jan 1, 2024· 3 minutes

Tijuana, Mexico

Do you also want to evaluate at the edge of the new year? I want the statistics: How many museums, how many cities, how many beach days, where did we go, how did it unfold? What do we want to change, and how can we do it? What is the better plan, based on the things we learned?

This kind of evaluation goes through my mind while the new year unfolds in the celebration on the last night of the year and the humble beginning on the first day.

Yet I don’t really want to do the work. Logging everything is boring. I rather want to live. Today. I rather want to find a golden middle way.

So today, on the second day of the new year, I will sit down and write a longer thing about what is going on, what we learned, what we want to do in this new year, and how to unfold it all. I will do it in my language and privately. In the past year, I have shared all of my written notes and decided to continue doing so (without the irritating day count, which clearly does not work). If it is interesting enough, I might make a blog post out of it.

But more interestingly, I want to know how you all feel. What does the new year do to you? How do you handle it? Is it just another day, or is it time for scrutiny, resolutions, change, evaluation - and if so, how do you do it and how does it make you feel? Can we learn from each other's strategies so we all become better people?

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We took it slow. Yoga on the roof. A bit of jogging. Walking in the sunshine, talking. Big salad and chili sin carne lunch. Sunset walk to meet the trash at the entry point to the beach, and the beauty of the sunset and the sunset itself, the first one of the year. We sang our sunset song of gratefulness for the day and the days, and met the Amish people who we had heard there is a big community of here - and felt the vibe of people who live by their values and have principles they stick to. We might not agree with their choices and worldview (but I would not be surprised; I would agree with at least 85%), but we do very much agree with those standards: Live by your values and stick to your principles.

So, this might be it. The core of what is worth evaluating and brushing up on at the edge of the new year: What will be the values of this year and the principles to stick to in order to have one more amazing year of no regrets?

Happy New Year, all.

As in: Congratulaions. One more! What a treasure. Let’s make sure we cherish it, feel it, stay in the infinity of moments in it, and stick to our most important values so we unfold what really makes sense and truly matters.

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