Hello 2025: On Resonance
A scenic sunrise taken somewhere in my neighborhood.
I’ve had a bit more free time the last couple of weeks than I usually do, and in that time, I’ve done a fair amount of thinking, planning, and scheming for the new year. This is something I’ve done almost every year throughout my adult life. I look forward to it, in a way I think I’m kind of addicted to it. There is something about the act of planning self-improvement that makes me feel good and productive. I’m also one of those who is able, most years anyway, to keep my plans and schemes going through the year.
So, yeah, for the most part, I feel good about it.
But in recent years I’ve realized that what I’m feeling is more around the progress towards the goal. It’s about ticking off the days, the tasks, the objectives, the measurements and counts, and the impact. And I’ve come to question whether or not I’m interested and feeling good about the right things.
I’m not sure I know the answer yet. But what I do think I’ve realized is that I’m putting more effort into the systems I’m creating and the order and control those systems seem to provide me than I am into the things that I want to get out of them.
Don’t get me wrong; there is a huge benefit in these systems and in the structure they provide. But as they relate to my life, I think they are more on the “means” side of things than the “ends” side. And I’m hoping to shift that balance. To what? I’m not entirely sure, but the word I think I will go with to describe what I’m looking for is “resonance.”
I like the idea of a theme word to help guide me through the year, especially when I’m feeling a little lost, which happens. So this year, I’m going with resonance as my theme word.
I didn’t come up with it on my own. As life sometimes does, it provides clues and waypoints to guide yourself, and this one I found in the intro to a book I’m working through: Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. This book is about embracing our imperfections in ourselves and our lives. And letting go of the drive to be perfectly productive. It’s about learning that life as an imperfect human being isn’t something that needs to be solved. I read this intro, and it instantly resonated (heh) with me. This is double-bonus cool because a section of the intro was about resonance, specifically, and how we might find it.
Burkeman writes that when we lack resonance, life feels empty and meaningless. He describes it cleverly as a contrast to how we should feel when we’re “productive” and doing all the “right things” but still feeling unsatisfied. We’re doing things, but they’re not filling our cup.
Reading this made me feel instantly sad, as it spoke to something I think has been lurking at the edge of my mind for many years. I feel this way sometimes, not all the time, but enough. I’ll not bore you—or myself—recounting all the ways why that is; I’ll just say that it resonated with me.
But it also excited me in a few ways. Understanding, even just a little, this feeling, this lack of resonance, triggered a strong desire to find out why and how I could change things, at least try something new. I realize it might be a trap. It could be just another self-improvement carrot to dangle in front of my gob as I run through the motions, resulting in feeling the same way on the other side. But maybe it’s not. Maybe there is something to it. I’m motivated to find out.
It was nice to see Burkeman speak to that very feeling and admit that he, like me, sometimes struggles with productivity addiction and a desire to design and implement systems to help bring life into control. Yep, that’s what I do all the time. I’m a huge fan of systems.
Like most new years, I see this new year as a reset. I’m not going to bin the systems I’ve got in place, but I’m also not going to try to improve them. They’re there, they work. I don’t need to justify their existence or my ability to be even more productive by putting more work into them.
Instead, I will take a step back and focus on looking for resonance in the things I do. I’ve got things I want to do, but plans and goals are a bit looser than usual. I’ll follow the energy wherever it leads me, trying not to impose too much order and control over where life goes, working on doing one thing (work, play, exercise, reading, etc.) that feels like the best next thing to do.
We’ll see how it goes. I’m excited to return to work and my job benefits from a fair amount of structure. At the same time, I’m often told that I try and do too much, so maybe a slight pullback will be good.
