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A year for turning over a new leaf, or, well, new(s)letter

I tell myself (and my therapist) that I’m not really one for New Year's resolutions. That I believe making goals doesn’t need some grandeur start date to be effective or achievable. But I surmise I say this because I’m actually just not one to see them through.

I have stints instead. 3 months of pilates and barre here, 3 months of transcendental meditation there. Before I know it, it’s late October, I don’t have another 3 months, and I’m just trying to find something (quite literally anything!) to stick with and make it through to the new year, just so I can say that I did.

And that’s just how I’ve been. I can’t even recall from memory the “goals” that I made for this year, it’s been that long since I’ve “worked” towards them. So I figured for 2024, I’d change my technique. Try something …new.

See, I wanna take a page out of someone else’s book— that is to say that I’m pulling these resolutions from more resolute folks than myself across the internet. And I wouldn’t frame this as setting myself up to compare to others, but rather I see it more like….. an accountability partner who probably won't check-in.

My first resolution of course is to have no resolution—stay with me here:

1/Drop the goals and pick up the problems; This is a sentiment I’m pulling from 2%’s newsletter confidant Dr. Trevor Kashey, who speaks to the idea that we often conceive these arbitrary goals to reach benchmarks that hold no specific meaning to us. This makes said goals easy to forget and move on from, only to make some more that we will inevitably forget again (guilty!!!). Instead, Dr. Kashey invites us to ask ourselves “What problem am I trying to solve?” And solving a problem is far more my speed than working towards a goal I pulled from a tiktok life coach I saw once.

2/What were all (hopefully) here for; To see Horde Haus unfurl into all its well-dressed glory is the objective I’m setting for myself, by myself. It’s an ode to my larger desires, a kept promise to my younger self, and least of all, a place for the jumbled whispers of my mind to unpack and realign and connect and maybe even redefine. In the vain of my first not-resolution: I’m solving the problem of a space where my fashion content and brain babble can live in harmony without the need to mince my thoughts into 2,000 characters or 20 seconds. Substack feels safe.

3/Read something hard; Okay, I’m actually merging two from David Coggins/The Contender, in which he advises we read something irrelevant, and read something hard. Now me, I love a good challenge, but I hate a dull book. However a classic and dull seem like they’d be mutually exclusive in this context so I guess I’m leaning on the crux of what exactly would deem something ‘irrelevant'. I’m setting the target of getting through just one book, but depending on how many library renewals I’m allowed for any single book, I may be able to make this a two-hard-books-a-year thing. Can it be wholly irrelevant? I can’t say, but I’m planning to take on Tolstoy and challenge my waning vocabulary. (Which is better: War and Peace or Anna Karenina?)

4/Wardrobe wipeout; I’ve nicked this one from Vogue Scandinavia’s EIC, which is to thoroughly clean out and reorganize my closet, unearth some overlooked gems, and part ways with the pieces that don’t give me joy. Easy right? My closet is quite literally bursting at the seams, much to the dismay of my roommate I’m sure, but here’s to hoping that having a better sense of what I've got will conceivably lead to both a minimized spending deficit and a lighter fashion footprint. The aim is not just to cut back on spending but to approach it thoughtfully, making intentional choices that align with my style and values.

My final non-resolution is simply to hold grace for the many versions of myself that will live and surely die through the next 365+ days. She is not inflexible, she is always g(r)o(w)ing through it, and it is always her very first time living that day. She is me, and until time travel exists, I can grant me that courtesy. I’ll hardly be the same person this time next year, and somehow I will also be exactly as I am. 

I haven’t figured out how to end these sort of things yet, so until then, I usher 2024 forward and welcome every bit. Subscribe below to keep up with all things Horde Haus and tell me about your (non-)resolutions in the comments below. And as Michael Easter said, “Have fun, don’t die, solve problems, and remember that not knowing is the most intimate”.