Well, will you look at that. Only one day left in the year. Time goes by fast, these days. 2020 feels like yesterday, but at the same time this morning feels like years ago. Or maybe they all feel the same way.

Last year, after the New Year party with my family at 00:00, I sat down and to the sound of the wonderful The Wind Raises soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi, I wrote a small list of goals to achieve during the year. It has been pinned over my bed ever since. Except for one glaring exception (exercise has never been my forte), I have, more or less, completed them all!

I have never looked at that list, however. Sure, it was there, sometimes I read when I was bored, but it has been no guide or roadmap. I hardly paid any attention to it. And yet, I find that all my progress during the year has been focused on those 5 objectives.

To be honest, they are pretty broad, each a small phrase, but still, I find, even now, that even having made significant progress in all those fronts, they have not changed one bit. I still have those same objectives, to this day, and I continue working towards them.

That is why, today, listening to the wonderful soundtrack of Whisper of the Heart by Yuji Nomi, I have decided that I will not be needing a new list of goals. Indeed, since I have followed them to the letter during all year without taking a single look at them, I don’t see why I need a list. I already have my compass, deep inside. A compass that points to what my heart most desires. Any attempts to formalize that compass into a discrete set of rules will fall short of its true meaning.

Thus, I shall start the year they way I want to live my life: in the ordinary. Why make the start of the year special when you can make the entire year special? What is stopping me from making every day in the year as special as New Year?

I think that is, if anything, my only objective: to follow my dreams and goals every day, not just in New Year. To make every day not only a day worth living but a day to be celebrated. To commence and recommence and fall and get up, every day, and to cherish them as much as I can. To have an adventure in every corner, in every cup of coffee, in every assignment. And to help others have days as good as mine.