2026 : New Year, New Me (But Make It Realistic)

 

Happy New Year! It’s 2026 now.

2025 was a long year. I achieved things and lost things simultaneously. It was an up-and-down journey. I wasted time; I planned and failed to follow through, planned again, and failed again. But it has been a good learning experience.

Now it’s 2026—a new year. A new year comes with new resolutions (mostly unfulfilled), but also with fresh excitement and hope. I’ve always found it a little weird how a simple change in date can feel so hopeful. It gives people excitement, something to look forward to. It’s almost like a year coming to an end and a new one beginning also brings an end to our problems, anxieties, and fears—and opens up new opportunities, changes, windows, doors, and paths. And maybe it really does. I don’t mean this pessimistically; more often than not, it actually does.

I’ve been thinking about what to write for a new post. I’ve been neglecting my blog, and then suddenly I remember, “Oh, I haven’t posted in a while.” I don’t want this to become like every other thing in my life—where I start off very excited and then slowly abandon it. I’ve had a difficult few weeks where I even stopped journaling and crashed a little. No journaling translates to no new blog posts. But I’m coming back now.

So here we are—New Year, new resolutions. It made me think about my own promises and commitments. We often don’t follow through on the commitments and resolutions we make to ourselves, and I realized that this is exactly what I was doing with my blog. So I decided to pick up my journal again and just write. And here I am—writing about the New Year, new resolutions, and new commitments.

I’ve also written down a resolution. It’s simple in theory, but very difficult to follow and quite complex when you really dissect it. I want to appreciate myself more and love myself more. It sounds very cliché—self-love and all—but I think it’s high time now. I want to be more disciplined, and I want to push myself toward happiness. These things are interconnected, and I’ll explain.

I feel like my current undisciplined, dopamine-addicted, procrastinating brain is completely fried. I’ve wired it for external, short-term happiness. Now it’s scared of being bored, staying still, and just thinking. So I’m in the process of rewiring and retraining it—away from short-term dopamine and instant gratification, and toward long-term, healthy habits and happiness. I’m trying not to fall back into old patterns.

I’m allowing myself to be bored and consciously pushing myself toward healthier sources of dopamine—like writing in my journal regularly, meditating, running, and going back to swimming. I think I’ll write another post about swimming and how it has been such a big part of my life.

They say it takes 60 days to form a habit and 100 days to change your mindset. I’m probably on day two, so it’s going to be a long journey. Maybe even lifelong. But we all have to start somewhere.

So, all in all—very simply put—I’m feeling hopeful and excited. I’m just trying to be a little better than I was last year.

And I just want to say Happy New Year to everyone. Yes, it’s a week late, but it’s still the New Year. I hope you follow your resolutions—and if you don’t, that’s okay. We all fail at them at some point. But this year’s resolution is something I don’t want to give up on. And even if I fail, I want to get up and start trying again.

This was supposed to be a simple New Year post and somehow turned into an introspective monologue. So I’ll stop here and save the rest for another day. Next post: something lighter, less emotional, and definitely less self-analysis—maybe anime or a book review.

Okay then! talk to you in next post:)