Happiness, excitement and anticipation are cycles. In order to experience them again to their full, you must allow them to fade for awhile. Trying to hold onto them for too long is causing you more grief than the actual lack of them in the moment.
Take a moment to breathe, and appreciate where you are, what you have, and who you’ve shared it with, before you rush onward.
I leave our lights up through Mardi Gras. We live in Seattle so darkness is our friend until March. Leaving them up through the long dark makes a 5a start seem less irritating and I feel like it brightens up the neighborhood a bit. We have also put up some year round, inoffensive, hipster lights that are either party/relax, depending on your mood.
Sabotaged Iran hostages being released during Carter’s administration. And the stuff others said. Check Hell of Presidents on the Chapo Traphouse patreon feed. I found it super interesting (I’m a history nerd).
We’re past the winter solstice. Take note of the sun setting a bit earlier each day. That always gives me a boost because I can look at my phone and see that condition improving. Good luck!
We often take a small vacation about January and go someplace warm.
I am not a morning person, but force myself to get up and go to work at 7 to maximize my daylight hours.
I have also found that bright lights help. The light bulbs in our house are bright. At work I have a lamp on my desk with three led bulbs (3 bulb adapter and slightly bigger shade). I got the idea from a podcaster that has 2 lamps on his desk for winter.
I think Iran (let’s leave the contra side out) was pretty bad. The US had been helping Sadam Hussein fight Iran by selling them weapons for years, only to discover they also started selling them to Iran too. Talk about hateful… Supplying weapons to both sides so they can go kill each other.
It’s why Sadam was so distrustful of the US, especially when Shrub (Bush Jr) came knocking a couple decades later.
You could do what they do in colder places and buy brightly colored stuff for your place. It’ll still be dark outside but at least the inside will look cheerier.
You could also try planning some beginning of the year parties with friends. That would certainly give you events to look forward to.
It’s also a great time to focus on health and well-being. I usually try to read and exercise more at the beginning of the year, sometimes long term habits form out of it, sometimes not. But it does help me feel better about the dreariness of the new year.
I look forward to this part of the year because it’s when winter sports begin. I don’t know if you’re somewhere you can take advantage of the weather and ski/curl/skate. If you are, do it. It’s a blast.
If you have Paramount+, don’t mind doing a free trial, or like to sail the seven seas, you can watch The Reagans documentary series. Another documentary that gives you some insight into the type of people they were is the Rock Hudson one. The TL;DR on that one is that they had been good friends for decades, especially Nancy, and the moment it came out that he had AIDS, they pretended he had never existed.
Ronald was basically an idiot but Nancy was a truly foul human being.
Alita: Battle Angel is a fun exploration into Bio modification as well as the hero’s journey. The first season of Altered Carbon also comes to mind, although the biomodification concept is in the lore, and not explicitly seen on screen. If you haven’t seen it, you can stop after the 1st season because the 2nd season is pretty garbage.
asklemmy
Hot
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.