A reflection on 2024 that I’ll be carrying into 2025
I can’t lie, I hate all the “new year, new me” bollocks. Surely there is no worse a time to try and radically reinvent yourself? It’s still dark at 4 pm, everyone has a post-Christmas come down and I’m usually exhausted from the festive chaos. And if that wasn’t enough, my TikTok feed has already ditched the gift hauls and fake Christmas card pranks in favour of relentless tips on how to lose weight, get rid of crow’s feet wrinkles using tape and quit cloud chasing (vaping).
This summer, after writing about my obsession with busyness, I decided to take a step back and ask myself: What do I actually want from the rest of the year? What truly makes me happy?
We live in a tick-box era, where life itself feels like one giant to-do list. We’re so focused on getting things done that we often forget to enjoy the doing. Sure, a daily to-do list can help you keep on track—but these lists seem to have infiltrated every aspect of our lives, including our leisure time. We’ve got bucket lists for travel that encourage us to visit somewhere new rather than return to the places we love. Must-see lists for films, TV and books can leave us feeling like we’re falling behind. And then there are society’s big checkboxes: marriage, kids, the dream job, living abroad, buying a house and so on.
But what about the joy of redoing things? After all, to-do lists were created to help people keep on top of their mundane chores, not so that we could feel like we’ve “completed” life.
When I asked on Instagram whether you prefer trying something new or revisiting something familiar, 98% of you said you’d choose the new. I get it. I’m often the first to suggest a new restaurant, book or holiday destination to a friend. But our thirst for novelty, known as neophilia, can come at a cost, as we can feel that what we have or what we experience is never enough.
On the surface, neophilia is that familiar feeling of staring at your wardrobe full of clothes and thinking, I have nothing to wear, leading to yet another unnecessary splurge on new items. But on a deeper level, this constant chase for what’s next can leave us feeling dissatisfied with the present and undervaluing what we already have, making us perpetually stuck in a mindset of lack. It’s as though we’ve trained ourselves to see the future as more exciting than the here and now.
But, in taking a step back and thinking about what actually makes me happy, I realised I wasn’t doing the things that I knew made me happy because I was always chasing the next new thing. However, recently, I’ve fallen in love with rereading, rewatching, revisiting and reconnecting because of the calm, comfort and the element of newness that redoing still brings.
This summer, my family and I returned to the place in France we’ve been visiting for the last ten years. When I was younger, I used to complain to my parents, asking why we couldn’t just go somewhere new (spoilt brat, I know). I once dreamed of filling the world map above my bed with pins from all the new places I’d been, but there’s something about revisiting a destination that also brings a sense of joy. It’s the familiarity that draws me in — the people we’ve come to know, the restaurants we can’t wait to revisit and the effortless feeling that comes with knowing exactly what to expect when we arrive. It’s not just about revisiting familiar spots; it’s about recalling how those places made you feel at different points in your life and imagining what it will be like to experience them now on the flight out there.
While browsing a bookshop on the Suffolk coast recently, a friend confessed her fear of never reading all the books she wants to read in her lifetime. It’s a feeling many of us know too well—the nagging guilt that comes when you pick up a book you’ve already read, as your "to be read" list on Goodreads continues to grow. Rereading can feel like a waste of time because it’s “unproductive” and we’ve been conditioned to see indulging in the familiar as a sign of weakness. However, I’ve realised that nothing beats tucking into a book you’ve loved before.
Firstly, you are never lost, meaning you are far more observant. You’ll pick out aspects you wouldn’t have even realised when you first opened up that book, such as the throwaway mention of Nymphadora Tonks at the beginning of the first Harry Potter book — a character who won’t appear until two books later. If you haven’t picked up a book in a few years, it’s likely you’ll connect with the characters in a different way, finding them more relatable as your perspective shifts with age and experience. Rereading is a bit like time travel — it allows you to reawaken the emotions that first drew you in. For example, this year I reread Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love. The first time I read it, I was 19, backpacking through Southeast Asia, swept up in the excitement of her wild adventures at university and in London. Now, 25, having experienced much of what she wrote about, I find myself feeling a deeper sense of empathy for her, as I’ve come to understand that life isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be (but it’s also a good laugh at times too).
The same can be said for rewatching a TV series or a film. Most of us all have that one show we love to play on repeat in the background as we are cooking or going about our lives. Rewatching offers a sense of security because we don’t have to gamble on whether it will be a hit or a miss. Last month, I rewatched Fleabag — it was hilarious the first time, so I knew it would be just as brilliant the second time around (the perfect hangover cure, may I add).
It’s a bit ridiculous when you think about the guilt some of us feel about redoing things because we are not crossing off new things on life’s to-do list. Why wouldn’t you go back to something you love? We should return to the same places, books, TV shows and films for the same reason we rebuy our favourite biscuits, return to our most cherished pubs or see our best friends again and again. They make us feel good. As C.S. Lewis once wrote: “To me, re-reading my favourite books is like spending time with my best friends. I’d never be satisfied to limit myself to just one experience each with my favourite people.”
So as we enter 2025, with all the pressure to embrace new experiences and new habits, don’t forget the things you already love — they’re your strong foundations. This year, instead of setting New Year’s resolutions, I’m focusing on New Year’s priorities, grounded in activities I’ve already enjoyed that bring me happiness. For me, that means setting aside time for a "me time" activity once a week — whether it’s visiting a gallery I love, taking a walk or popping into a bookshop I enjoy. I’ll also be relistening to old podcast episodes because they feel like free therapy and always leave me feeling uplifted. And I want to spend time with friends in ways that go beyond just meeting at the pub. The difference between New Year’s priorities and New Year’s resolutions is that I don’t have to do these things, but I’ll likely try and do them because I already know they make me feel good. I’m not suggesting we abandon the idea of trying new things altogether, but I do believe we should feel less guilty about redoing things that bring us joy (and we are far more likely to stick to them anyway!).
That being said, I’ve just booked two holidays to two new places…oops!