Sketching new year's resolutions
These days, I've been sketching my new year's resolutions. I like this practice a lot. These resolutions are serious but also playful and gentle. They are directions for thinking and acting, a guide for my personal growth. I often use these resolutions to incorporate various sustainability practices, or become better at the ones I'm already doing.
My first resolution is to use even less plastic. I believe that I live with less plastic than what is the norm in this society, but due to various physical and mental health issues, I felt that more plastic became part of my life again. In the past few months, I've focused on healing, and my health is improving.
My second resolution is to drink more tea than coffee. There are many kinds of local herbs that can be used to make herbal tea. I love chamomile tea. I did not want any presents for Christmas, but my loved one got a reusable cup for me. I use it at home too. It holds just under half a litre of water, so my hot drinks last a long time. I don't own a tea cup, and I used to use a jar to make tea. The jar worked really well, apart from the fact it got very hot and I had to wait a while to be able to hold it.
My third, and main, resolution is to focus on myself. I don't think it's a manifestation of selfishness. It is an act of service to nature and fellow humans. I notice that when I focus on my personal growth, I am a better researcher, teacher and a fellow being to human and non-human others. 2023 was the worst year in my life, but it was also full of learnings that arose from bad experiences. I resigned from my position at a Finnish university as an act of activism against violence in academia. I moved to Denmark for several reasons. I was writing a book about Danish businesses, Denmark was close to Finland, and I had an invitation from a Danish university to join them as a guest researcher. I understand some Danish, and in general I feel comfortable and at home in the Nordics. But also my co-author and partner lives in Denmark. When I moved, we moved in together. I/we thought it would be an overwhelmingly positive experience and a source of meaning. I don't regret this relationship but it was not what I imagined it would be. Something that I learned was that love is not enough, and that serious differences in values and approaches to everyday life are strong forces that can cause feelings of sadness, sorrow, and even disappointment and resentment. I decided to stop expecting a fairytale and instead accept that not every relationship must work out. This relationship might work out or it might not. I am curious to see how it unfolds. But above all, I plan to invest my energy into my personal growth rather than in pursuing an ideal relationship.
My fourth resolution is to finish my book. I've been writing this book as all the negative experiences were unfolding. It was a process with very conflicting feelings. It felt authentic and therapeutic at times. At other times, it felt like a burden. But to me it is an important project where all my thoughts and reflections on my area of research will constellate. Since I published my first paper in 2020, fellow humans have been reaching out with countless questions. I will attempt to answer all of them in this book.
My fifth resolution is to converge my research and personal practice even more. Since 2016, I've been researching the role of business in degrowth transformations. I've been writing mainly about that. Much longer than that I have been practising voluntary simplicity, zero-waste, and minimalism. It is only more recently that I decided to write an autoethnographic article about this and made all my autoethnographic data public. It is incredibly time-consuming to write about degrowth business and about my own practices. In the coming year I hope to focus a bit more on my autoethnography.