Wishes I have for the coming decade.
So one of my people gave me this prompt and it is kind of a doozy. For a multitude of reasons, I am not one generally given to thinking about my personal lifespan in anything other than a year or so ahead of wherever I am at the moment. I’m still amazed I lived to see my 30th birthday. This is, of course, hilarious, given that my chosen major and life passion is history so I’m well familiar with the passage of time and thinking in cathedral time. My only possible explanation for it is that I am a Crusades/Renaissance historian primarily and so I’m accustomed to applying that thinking to the past and not, you know, my present/future. So it massively threw me for a loop when I realized that we’re not only at the end of the year but at the end of a decade. Time is also this weird nebulous concept. It feels like 20 years has passed between right now and this past January. So yeah.
This post is about wishes.
Wishes are super magical things. They are desires and dreams and worries given form and sent out into the great ether. Wishes get transformed into so many tangible and intangible things. Like, if you are looking for the magic inherent in the world, it’s wishes, ya’ll. Trust me on this.
My personal wishes come in weird formats, ranging from the excessively minor to the staggeringly huge.
However, for this next decade, I think the thing I am wishing most for is to be happy.
Uncomplicatedly happy more often than not. This year and decade has done a hell of a number on me personally and also on so many of the people that I hold so dear. So yeah, I want to be happy. Or rather I want to be in a place physically and also mentally/emotionally where that’s something that my brain can latch on to more readily. Depression, anxiety, and chronic pain are no joke, but things have gotten better this decade. I want that to continue.
I wish for the world to be a safer place for people like me. I wish for it to be safer period.
I also wish that someone would come up with a better method for managing auto-immune conditions. Despite not really thinking I’d make it this far, I really want to see 40,50, and 60. Beyond that, too.
So my hopes and dreams and wishes for the upcoming decade come down to health, security, and happiness. For me, my tribe, and the world.
For me, happiness is an elusive concept. Over the years, I’ve come to think contentment is better. I don’t need this or that to be happy, but instead I may accept and be content or at peace with things as they are. I read “The Happiness Trap” & ACT therapy books. It has helped w/ the anxiety & depression that comes with autism and being LGBT in 2019. The 6 components of ACT work in sync to build contentment and meaning, which is as close to sustainable happiness as I’ve ever come. Best wishes to you in the new year. I enjoy reading your blog.