2023: The Year of Connection

Over the last several years, I have noticed myself slowly detaching from the world around me; not a lack of awareness, but a lack of presence. I’ve found it easy to lose myself in the stream of national and global concerns facing humanity, and that has caused me to drift away from more tangible, nearby, and familial connections.

I recognize that part of the detachment I’m feeling is a coping mechanism to deal with the barrage of “unprecedented times” in recent memory, and the corresponding emotional cocktail of helplessness, dread, and pessimism. However, this detachment was able to fester because it’s far easier to be keenly aware of every detail about humanity's challenges than to have a significant, direct impact on them.

That’s why my 2023 yearly theme is “connection.“ I want to shift my focus toward feeling more connected with the world directly around me: rekindle interpersonal connections that have lapsed, create new ties to places close to my heart, re-balance my relationship with social media, and resurface writing as a way to better connect with my own mind and emotions.

Ideal outcomes

• Be a more communicative with family and friends — I’d like to be more proactive about communication and I hope that communicating more with those around me will help strengthen and broaden my personal support system.
• Volunteer in my local community at least twice — I hope that volunteering will provide a sense of personal satisfaction or accomplishment, and generate new connections to people in my local community.
• Take photo walks to find new things to love about my neighborhood — My photography hobby has stagnated, but I think photo walks could be a great way to reconnect with something I once loved and examine my neighborhood through a different lens.¹
• Blog at least four times — Writing has always helped me gather my thoughts professionally, but has not been a tool I’ve reached for personally. I’d like to try to use it more to examine my own feelings, and I hope that sharing those thoughts publicly might foster a connection to the open web I love dearly.