2023 baby!
I’ve always liked the idea of new years resolutions but at some point, I decided that setting intentions sounded a lot nicer compared to setting hard resolutions resolutions.
For example, instead of saying: my new years resolution is to go to the gym at least 3 times a week. I’d say this year I intend to have a more active lifestyle by doing things like… playing basketball with my favorite people to hoop with (shoutout Sunday Washed Club 🏀) or go on runs with my coworkers. It’s much less discouraging if/when you don’t hit your mark. Obviously, we’d all want to be able to stick to all our goals but more realistically, I think setting intentions is a gentler way of giving ourselves a direction and areas of focus.
For 2023, one of my intentions is to explore my creativity more and one of the ways I’ve told myself I’m going to do that is by keeping this blog regularly updated with my musings about life, interviews with friends, poems, videos… etc.
In addition to setting intentions, I usually pick a word or phrase that serves as my motto for the year. It’s not something that I force myself to have designated by Dec. 31st at 11:59pm… it’s something that emerges over time. So to kick of Let’s Hold Hands 2023, as we head into the 🐐 of years… I’d like to share my motto for the year: Joy.
It’s a word that has popped up frequently in the last few months, whether it was in a book or a song or on a podcast or through watching old home videos. The moment it revealed itself to me as my motto for the year occurred a few days ago on a family trip to Lake Tahoe for my mom’s birthday. It was something that was culminating during the weeks I’ve spent in California to end 2022.
Being at home in the Bay Area is always special for me because I get to see my mom and dad and my childhood friends, who I adore. (If you’ve read my inaugural LHH blog post, you know how I feel about friendships.) It’s pretty neat to have a whole community of friends, family, and old teachers to catch up with when you come home, especially when you love each other unconditionally. There’s so much comfort and warmth.
Here’s a sprinkle of memories that led me to conclude that Joy would be my motto for the year:
GOING TO THE MOVIES! My family and I went to see Avatar 2 on Christmas together IN THEATERS!! Going to the movies is one of my absolute favorite things to do. Going to the movies on Dec 25th is a long standing tradition for the Yang family… (We saw Les Misérables one year which was… miserable for me because I didn’t know it was a musical lol) This year, we packed into my dad’s mini van that he used to drive us around everywhere in as kids and because Avatar is an extremely hot ticket… we saw it in a theater with no reclining chairs 👎 . It felt like taking a time machine back to 2009. I also got my mom and sister to come see The Fabelmans with me, this time in a theater with reclining chairs 👍. Absolutely chef’s kiss.
VISION BOARDING + HOME COOKED MEALS <3 For New Years Eve, my friends and I had a little vision board party (shout out Tammy, Lex, and Pauline.) We all made collages out of old Teen Vogue magazines and stickers and Lex cooked Bun Rieu 🤤 There were sour belts involved (the best candy of all time) and music (courtesy of Tammy DJ-ing). It was the perfect way to ring in the new year.
meandering through bookstores I visited two bookstores in December: Pegasus Books in Oakland and Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park. One of my other absolute favorite things to be surrounded my books, whether it’s a library or a shop. In Oakland with Tammy and Lex, I picked up 2 books: Upstream by Mary Oliver and A Lifetime of Wisdom: Essential Writings by and about the Dalai Lama edited by Clint Willis. In Menlo Park, my sister very kindly bought me Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I used to think that I had to finish one book before I started the next but I’ve been experimenting with reading multiple books at once and it’s been very fun. It’s nice to get to switch between books depending on the vibe I’m feeling and not feeling pressure to have to finish one before I start the next.
being outdoors 🧘🏻♀️ Two of the things I miss the most about living in California: the space and the nature. I got my mom into hiking last year so I got to go on some strolls with her after work. A really great way to unplug. I went on a run with my old cross country coach. I love being outside, staring at the open sky and observing the ever-changing clouds. It’s something I don’t get to see much in New York.
In Tahoe, I got up early one morning to see the sunrise and witnessed the sky shift from light pink to orange to multi-shades of blue. My feet planted in the snow. Scrolling through my camera roll later that day, I couldn’t help but smile at how joyful my mom was stomping in the fresh powder. It reminded me of one of my favorite memories with her. When I first moved to the east coast, I was living in Secaucus, NJ and she came to visit during the winter. One night it started snowing really hard so we rushed outside in our big puffy jackets and boots and frolicked in the parking lot. I always knew my mom liked the snow but this was the first time that I realized she LOVED the snow. (see below)
Looking at the photos and videos we captured made me so happy and reminded me of a Mary Oliver poem that I found after that night of vision boarding with Lex + P + T.
Joy is not made to be a crumb.
If you know me in real life, you know that I love asking random questions like.. if you had to pick 3 liquids to have on tap for the rest of your life, what would they be? (my answer is: mango green smoothie, kombucha, and coconut water? or green tea… fluctuates depends on my mood.) I had a phase last year where I kept asking my close friends “What are the top 5 things you do that bring you joy?” It’s a fun question to pose because you really get to know your pals hearing about why they love the things they do.
I thought of the question after a night of INTENSE Catan play at my friend Leslie’s. When I say intense.. I mean it. Leslie and her boyfriend Brian have a custom-carved wood case for the board game with LAMINATED resource cards. (I would like to report that I beat them, hehe.) The morning after, I casually mentioned to Leslie how much I loved to play board games. I’m super competitive so it sometimes becomes very painful for me… like when I lose… but it’s something that I enjoy so so much. I just thought to myself, why don’t I do it more? That led me to thinking about what else I love to do and ended with me asking Leslie, if she had to pick the 5 things she did that brought her the most joy… what would they be. We both shared our lists and it dawned on me…
These things were all so simple. They were things that I do every week.
My list was the following, in no particular order:
Playing basketball
Going to the movies
Playing board games
Playing my guitar
Asking people questions
As I continued to ask my friends this question over the following weeks, I noticed a theme. They were always things that involved loved ones, being active, good food, and play. They were always simple. The answers I heard took a lot of weight out of day-to-day stresses I was feeling at the time. It made me realize that a lot of the stuff I was stressing about didn’t really matter. All the things I was chasing felt quite meaningless because at the end of the day, if I just got to do the things on my list and live a relatively simple life… I think I’d be ecstatic.
From Covid to climate change to the rise in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, there are so many things about society that can take me down a negative thought spiral if I doom scroll long enough. I’m still figuring out my role in creating change in my community but I truly believe that they best way I can do that is with joy. I’ve noticed that when I think of problems through a lens of negativity, it becomes extremely draining and demotivating. You can’t sustainably help others when you aren’t mentally well yourself. I loved seeing my social media feed drowning in gratitude-filled 2022 round-up posts. Maybe it’s something we can do more frequently.
I’ve tried doing a nightly journal of 5 things I’m grateful for but… that never really stuck. Maybe it’s too similar in vibe to a resolution.
Here’s to a year of more basketball, more movies, more music, more interviews, more blog posts, and more VICTORIES IN CATAN. 😈
