Happy Vernal Equinox!

I know I’m a little early, but I hope you’ll indulge me. I mean, the plane of Earth’s equator only passes through the geometric center of the Sun’s disk twice a year. And what a great name: Vernal Equinox. Two good words that are better together. Come on in, Spring!

For a couple years now, I’ve kept two notebooks. One is a diary; the other is for other notes, reminders, back-of-the-envelope calculations, etc. In a way, one is for things I think I’ll want to remember, and the other is more of a snapshot of random thoughts I had or problems I was working on. That means they’re both a joy to flip through when I get nostalgic, as I did when I went home for Christmas this Winter.

At the front of my current notebook (after the page where I christened it), there was a page where I listed my priorities for the then-upcoming Fall 2020 semester. I split up all my obligations (my classes + reading, running, and getting a job) into four priority groups: Top, High, Medium, and Low. In the margin, I defined these as, aim to do exceedingly well, aim for competency/make time for daily, aim to do well, but don’t sweat, and aim to enjoy but do bare minimum. I allocated a couple obligations to each category, then, if memory serves, completely ignored them for the whole semester.

I don’t remember if I considered the experiment a failure, but I didn’t do anything similar for the Spring semester. Perhaps that would have been because, once the semester actually started, all my priorities shifted around. I completely dropped a Medium priority, and a Top priority turned into a Low priority.

In school, each semester brought a refreshing new slate of classes, but outside that structure, it’s easy for weeks to blur into years. It was relatively easy to devote my full attention to classes without worrying about what I had taken before or would take later. After graduating, I developed this peculiar neurosis. I had a long list of every hobby, goal, and interest I want to pursue, and I felt bad every day that I didn’t make progress towards all of them. (Which was every day).

Finding that notebook page gave me the idea to try to recreate that semester structure. I considered yearly resolutions since it was around the New Year anyway, although that period seemed too long for my purposes. It’s easy to slack on goals early in the year, and leave too much for yourself to do in December. I thought about Quarters which felt about the right length but were too corporate. In the end, I remembered a friend who told me she felt like she ought to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes. Season would be the same as Quarters but more romantic, and they would give me and excuse to celebrate. So I made a text file with all the things I wanted to do this Winter, and now that it’s almost over, here are my thoughts.

I tried to make it exhaustive which meant there were a lot of perennial daily, weekly, and monthly routines (e.g. calling family and journaling) that belong in a separate list. The most unexpected positive result were the things I decided I wouldn’t worry about: decorating, dating, figuring out where I’ll live when my lease is up. (Deciding not to do things may be the most freeing part of any todo list.) Aside from that, I did most of the things I intended to. I read as many books and watched as many movies as I intended. When I post this, I’ll have blogged as much as I intended. I hosted a game night and joined a bowling league like I intended to.

A few things didn’t go quite to plan. There were a couple specific people I meant to reach out to, but I chickened out. I didn’t buy a bike, and I still can’t decide if I will, so that’s still a pebble in my shoe. Although I allowed myself to run less, I didn’t replace that with stretching or core as much as I intended to. I’ve partially decided what to do in the Spring, but that is ultimately a job for tomorrow. Once again, Happy Vernal Equinox!