Hello lovely,
September has always felt more like the new year to me than January ever has. There’s something about this time of year that feels like a collective reset. The routines come back, the calendars start filling up and there’s a particular energy in the air that says, okay, we’re back. I feel it especially as my son starts another school year. This makes me feel like I’m starting fresh too.
And then comes the swirl.
September can be exciting, but it can also feel like a lot. We go from the slower, looser rhythm of summer into a season that asks us to get organized, get productive and get moving. There can be a subtle pressure to come back refreshed, motivated and ready to take on everything.
Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about lately: happiness. We put so much emphasis on being happy. We talk about happiness as something to pursue, achieve or maintain, as though a good life is one in which we feel good most of the time. But I’m not sure I believe that anymore.
I think happiness might have less to do with feeling happy and more to do with our ability to be with whatever is. The good, the difficult, the uncertain, the boring, the joyful, the heartbreaking, the things we can change and the things we absolutely cannot. Not because we have to like everything that happens, but because life is going to contain all of it. Perhaps a deeper kind of wellbeing comes from developing the capacity to stay present for the whole experience rather than constantly trying to get ourselves back to “happy.”
So as I enter my own September new year, I’m trying to resist the urge to make a big plan for becoming a better version of myself. Instead, I’m paying attention to what’s here and asking myself what I want to make room for. Maybe that’s enough of a September reset.
Wishing you a little less pressure to have it all figured out, and a little more room to be with whatever is here.
With love,
Vesna
The love list:
Watching: Survival of the Thickest
Reading: My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Listening: Dolly Parton’s America