rules for 2024

1. Normalize changing your mind. If you have the same exact thoughts and opinions and preferences that you did last year, that’s weird. You are supposed to grow, learn, re-evaluate and change your mind and you should do so often. You shouldn’t stubbornly hold on to beliefs and habits that don’t serve you or you no longer agree with. You should be contradicting, confusing, and complex and you don’t need to make sense or fit in a label or box. You should also get used to being wrong about things. You should let go of thinking you have all the right answers. Chances are you will disagree with yourself in a year or two so don’t take your own opinions so seriously and judge people who disagree. This is another good thing with a bad reputation. I am all for quitting things in 2024. Free yourself of anything you don’t love and doesn’t add joy or value to your life- life is too short to stick with something just because you “should”. Stop finishing books you don’t like, stop hanging out with people who make you feel small, quit that sport or hobby you are dreading, stop drinking if it makes you feel like shiz. When we quit things, we make room for new things that will better serve us.
2. Vary your news sources and don’t feel pressured to “choose a side” in every single conflict. I just don’t think enough people do this, Casey of previous years included. So many sources out there are inaccurate and biased. Even if you think you have found the most factual and non-biased news source ever, explore another one. Explore 4-5. Listen to both sides. Be curious instead of defensive and combative. Don’t assume one side is “right” because you tend to lean that way. Also, educate yourself and stay informed of what is going on in the world- but don’t feel like you need to become an expert on every issue and take a side. Speak up of course about causes you care deeply about and are educated on, especially if you have an influential platform (which I do not so you will not see me post about this often!), but you are also free to keep your thoughts and opinions to yourself and don’t need to prove to anyone else that you are “on the right side of history” or are a good person or whatever by posting an infographic on instagram. Your actions and choices and who you actually are as a person will determine that.
3. Similar to the above sentiments, get to know and learn about people who are different from you. I am all for having a maximum of 5 close friends and it is very likely you will share similar values, passions, and interests (nothing wrong with that, that is likely why you were drawn to each other in the first place!) but be careful of being trapped in your own little bubble of a world. Stop avoiding people who look, love, live, and vote differently from you. Actively seek them out and talk to them. Learn about their lives and be curious and nonjudgemental. If not in person, then online or through books. For example, I am fully invested in watching day in the life videos of people who live in faraway places in the world I have never been and may never go (like homesteaders in Alaska for one example). I follow the lives of Mormons and Muslims, and Orthodox Jews, and Agnostics. Chances are, you won’t drastically shift your morals and values and opinions after learning about people who think differently (and I promise you will not be brainwashed if that is something you are worried about), but you will understand them just a little bit better. They will become more human to you. You will realize most people are doing their best with the circumstances and information they have. You will realize most people have good intensions and just want the best for themselves and their loved ones. You will realize everyone is beautiful and strong and amazing and flawed and right and wrong all at the same time. You will start to ever so slowly chip away at “us vs. them”. You will become just a little more open minded and curious and yes, sometimes, you might realize you were wrong, and you might change your mind about something big or small.
4. Be happy and grateful and normalize life not being so hard. Obviously hard things will happen, you will have bad days/weeks/maybe even months, and you are allowed to feel all the negative emotions too, but unless you have a clinical mental disease or are in the midst of a genuine life altering crisis (which I am so sorry if that is the case), it is good and ok for the default to be happy and content and to genuinely enjoy your daily life. That should be the norm. You don’t have to complain all the time just because everyone else is. You don’t have to be miserable all winter and hate shorter rainy days and wish them away. You don’t have to be scared or worried or sad all the time. You can like your life and be happy. You don’t have to be “so busy” or frazzled or stressed, you can be calm and at peace most of the time! Things can work out for you most of the time and not be so hard. Part of it is obviously luck, but it’s also the result of the time and effort it took to create a life you want. You are allowed to bask in your lucky enjoyable life, and you don’t need to constantly feel guilty for it. It’s enough to just be grateful. If you annoy people with your joy and positivity, that’s fine. They are rightfully jealous because there is absolutely nothing better than a happy and peaceful life, but don’t give anyone permission to disturb that peace you have worked so hard for or that you have been lucky enough to be granted.
5. Work hard and try! Even if you have been blessed with a happy easy life (which there is absolutely wrong with), don’t be lazy. Find something you care about and put some genuine effort into it. I promise it will be so fulfilling. It could be your job/career or a hobby, it could be homemaking, it could be an intellectual or physical goal. It could even be a really farfetched and delusional dream. Choose something you want to achieve or improve at and actually work hard to get it. Stop being so entitled and just assuming you should make more money or receive that praise or accolade without first putting in hard work. Stop assuming certain goals are just never going to work out for you or are unattainable or that life is working against you (even if in some ways it is). Work hard at it anyways and just see what happens. You might be right, and you might not achieve what you wanted, but the point is that you tried anyways. You put in the time and effort and hope and sometimes that is the part that makes your life better, even better than getting what you wanted. Also be patient- sometimes you will have to work hard for a long time to see results, way longer than you thought. Also, back to rule 1- along the way, you might change your mind about what you wanted and shift gears and stop working towards said goal, but just know that time spent trying and working hard is never wasted. It taught you something, it changed you, it made you stronger and better and that is the whole point.
6. Stop trying to be so special and unique! Yes, we are all different and you should be your authentic self, but my point here is that you shouldn’t avoid or add certain things to your life just to be different. You don’t need to hate on popular things just because they are popular. Chances are they are popular for a reason and if you give them a chance it is very possible you will like them too. When you embrace the things you truly love, even if they are popular or basic, life is better. Trust me as a relatively recently recovered “unique” girly- life go so much better and more enjoyable when I started listening to pop music again and enjoying trendy foods and drinks and TV shows. I have loved almost all of it. It’s made me more of a girls girl and more authentically me. If you don’t like Taylor Swift, The Morning Toast, trendy tick tock makeup, and rom coms that is fine too, and you shouldn’t conform or pretend to, but for all of you just denying yourself these simple pleasures in life because you are way too cool and unique- you are welcome to join the club anytime, it is fun and girly and joyful over here. Along with those small and silly things, it is also ok if the big things you want in life are not so unique either. It’s ok if you don’t want to have a super cool and unique side hustle or hobby or to start your own business. It’s ok if you don’t want to write a book or travel the world or to never get married or have kids. If you do want that big crazy unique life, that is great too and I hope you get it. But if you just want a simple life and a beautiful home and family in the suburbs- same. That is what most of us actually want. It’s because that simple happy life is actually amazing and comfortable and underrated. It’s ok for that life to be your biggest, craziest, goal and dream.
7. “Let them”. I didn’t make this one up, and again it is so connected to all the others so my apologies if I am sounding redundant. But “let them” is my phrase of the year this year. This goes along with protecting your peace and not allowing other people’s opinions and choices impact you. Someone is annoying you on social media? Let them. Who cares. Mute and move on. Someone is judging your life choices? Let them. You know what is best for you. Someone disagrees with your values and opinions? Let them. Maybe you are wrong, maybe they are. One of you will figure it out eventually, bur for now changing their opinion is none of your business. Someone wants to leave Christmas decorations up until the spring and you find that super cringy and tacky? Let them, unless it’s your house it is none of your business. Someone wants to work towards a goal that is absolutely unrealistic and a waste of time (in your opinion)? Let them. It’s not your time being wasted and they can figure that out for themselves. Someone is grouchy and miserable all the time? Let them! You can spend less time with them and choose to be happy. Let them, let them, let them. Literally let go of caring what anyone else is doing. In 2024 we are not going to let our actual mental state be impacted by what other people are choosing to think or do with their lives. Other people are not going to have enough power to make us annoyed, hateful, self deprecating etc.
8. Stop demonizing screen time/non productive time. If your phone is totally taking over your life and you are not being present with real people or putting the time you want to into your goals, or if it is leading you into comparison spirals and making you sad- sure try to track and limit your screen time, but otherwise, who cares. I used to be so hard on myself if I spent more than 15 min scrolling on my phone or looked at a screen before doing my morning journal etc. In 2024 I am turning off the alerts on my phone that tell me I have spent too much time on certain apps-like leave me alone. I feel like we have control the curate our social media and use it to our advantage. We can mute and unfollow people who make us feel bad and we can curate our “for you” page to show us the things we want. When I am on my phone, I am either getting inspiration, connecting/catching up with others, learning something new, or, worst case scenario, being entertained and taking a mental break for a few. Overall, it mostly impacts my life for the better and I am not going to make all these screen time rules for myself just because that’s the thing to do. I think instead we should all work on using technology to our advantage and using it to make our lives better. Also, the small amount of time I am using it for pure entertainment is ok too. Along with this: fiction books and reality TV. We don’t need to make every second of the day so productive and impactful. It is ok to be mindless and give your brain a break for small amount of time every day. We won’t have to only read famous literary works or watch award winning deep and thoughtful movies 24/7. We can watch silly little videos and rich 60 year old women yelling at each other and just laugh sometimes. We can physically and mentally rest and reset and in my opinion, this allow us the mental energy to be intentional and make the most of our time when we do tune back in to real life. If scrolling on tick tock for 30 min night or watching every episode of RHOBH are my worst “vices” I think I am doing pretty good and if you disagree, see rule 7.