This is a submitted post.
A new year and a new decade are upon us. And for many, this is the time to start enacting positive changes in all aspects of our lives. The notion of New Year’s resolutions isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon. In fact, we’ve been doing it since the days of Ancient Rome. However, in a new decade, maybe we should all resolve to make a different kind of resolution. The kind that shakes us out of our comfort zones, addresses our biases and affords us a more rounded and enlightened perspective on life.
The importance of getting out of your comfort zone
Nobody wants to live in an echo chamber, hearing their own opinions reflected back at them. While reassuring at first, living like that can make us lose touch with reality. Unfortunately, when you spend a lot of time in the digital realm (and who doesn’t) everything from your social media feeds to your Amazon product recommendations and your Netflix watch list is carefully tailored to your unique views and tastes by complex algorithms. As such, it’s arguably more important than ever for us all to take bold steps outside of our comfort zone and try more new things…
Expand your cultural horizons
Do you tend to see the same old blockbusters when you head out to the movies? When was the last time you saw a live theater show that wasn’t a lavish Broadway musical? Make 2020 the year you try new things. Attend more museums and galleries, especially those that have their own charitable causes like the Park West Gallery so you can do some good while expanding your horizons. When you expand your horizons, there’s always something to talk about when you meet new people. Which brings us to...
Meet new people and make new friends
In an era where so many of our social interactions take place digitally, it’s never been more important to make time for people face to face. That’s about more than just making time for your existing friends (although that’s really important, too). It’s also about getting out there, meeting new people and making new friends. No matter where you live, there’s always a society to join or a class to take where you can learn from and hang out with like-minded people.
Get more creative and crafty
Crafting is more than just incredibly rewarding, empowering and therapeutic… It’s also a great skill to have which will subtly condition you to repurpose and reuse more, seeing everything as a potential crafting resource. This can not only make for a creatively rewarding hobby, it can also help you to reduce your household waste as you craft new items out of old packaging and repurpose old belongings.
Broaden your culinary palate
Finally, we all have our favorite foods… but trying new things and broadening our culinary palate not only makes us more well-rounded individuals, it makes it easier to embrace healthier options when we have an open mind and don’t let ourselves fall into fussy eating habits. Whether you’re giving Veganuary a try this year or deciding that this is the year when you finally try oysters there’s rarely a downside to trying new foods… unless you discover a latent allergy, of course.
