Looking to 2023: Life, Nature, Celebration, Empowerment

It has been a few years since I've set real New Year's Resolutions; in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are just trying focused on survival, making it through, looking forward to an uncertain unknown when maybe life will be better again. The pandemic isn't really over, but we're kind of over it, and the world has almost returned to some semblance of normal, if not a modified new normal which is much of the old but with scars and small reminders of the virus. Instead of resolutions, which so often go uncompleted or forgotten, themes and direction are often more lasting. I often take inspiration from Pantone's announcement of the new Color of the Year, with Pantone's vivid and almost anamorphic descriptions of a (usually) singular color answering the question, what does the world need right now? 

2023's Color of the Year is Viva Magenta, which has even in the name a mantra of life and celebration. Pantone's description of it as the choice for 2023 includes words and notions such as "rooted in nature", "a new signal of strength", "pure joy" and "experimentation and self-expression without restraint," rebellious and audacious. Right now, I feel almost none of those things, and so it’s like the color is calling to me to demand more of my self, my life, my abilities and my vision. 

One very compelling line from Pantone is, "In this age of technology, we look to draw inspiration from nature and what is real." I recently saw on Twitter a prompt asking what the most impactful technology was in 2022, and I without even looking at the responses, I considered it for a moment and was certain that 2022 was the year of Artificial Intelligence. AI has made some really interesting leaps this year; I've seen the impacts at my work, played around with novel AI apps and read some fascinating stories about AI advancements. In a job market where it seems like there just aren't enough interested and qualified workers to do the work, one must at some point consider how we utilize our current knowledge workers to do more, and telling them to work harder is simply not an option, so amending their abilities with technology like AI seems like the only path forward.

Yet, as Pantone reminds us, we want to live in the real world. Technology like AR and the metaverse has not (yet) absorbed us into its hold in a semi-permanent obsessive state, and we're already seeing the seeds of people wanting more, wanting reality, wanting nature, not tech, to absorb them. 

The theme of empowerment speaks both to the amazing technologies now at our fingertips and the sense of choice people have discovered through the pandemic - having had too much time perhaps to consider what it is we really want in life and adjusting values accordingly, make it difficult, especially in the workplace, to return to what once was normal. Yet that empowerment seems to be tinged with a sense of unknowing - we can make our own choices but what if we're wrong? And I think the inspiration of returning to nature provides the safety net we need to move forward despite the self-doubt. Indeed, the closing line of Pantone's description is that the color, "invoking the forces of nature… galvanizes our spirit, helping us to build our inner strength." 

Taking my queues from the colorful description of an otherwise medium-dark red, and my own observations and desires, I wonder aloud here what I should strive for in 2023. Rather than a list of things to do or end goals to achieve, I have described here themes to work on with some specific ideas on how to feel I've grown in those areas.

Life: Be an active participant

I feel like I've struggled recently with how my life has been going, and the last couple years has felt like my hands aren't on the steering wheel. Circumstances have led to the feeling of being defeated, like things aren't in my control, and I lack the willpower to change things or to fight for what I want. It requires much less resistance to go with the flow and let things happen to me. I remember being so motivated, intentional, ambitious and active in my 20s and I think the thing that scared me the most about my  30s was that I could never be that good again. And perhaps I let that fear become my reality instead of fighting against that notion and raising the bar for myself. Rather than be a passive observer of my life passing before me, there are a few things I need to be more intentional about, and I need to get over myself and my desire for motivation in order to do those things. I feel like I lack purpose, but celebrating life should be purpose enough, and especially rebounding from the pandemic, having a home I feel comfortable in and a job which allows work/life balance, perhaps this is the perfect time to take back my life's direction. 

• Buy my land
• Increase discipline in health routines
• Have a mindfulness weekend retreat
• Do that regularly
• Have a blog-a-thon to write about topics already started
• Book/plan vacation
• Complete >1 from room renovation 
  

 

Nature: Go deeper into outer space 

Space has always been a very casual interest for me, and I've been blessed with many opportunities to explore it in depth which I may not have taken full advantage of in hindsight. I'd like to take a more active interest and utilize the local Griffith Observatory as a support mechanism to do so. Starting with, first and foremost, making an effort to watch the monthly virtual program and an initial visit to the observatory to take in the museum and telescope usage. Ironically, this idea came to me when I asked an AI chatbot, ChatGPT, to create a Los Angeles bucket list. Or perhaps it is not ironic, but compelling, that AI can amend our knowledge of the world around us and the immediate things to empower us to be better versions of ourselves. 

• Listen to Planetary Radio podcast when available
• Watch All Space Considered monthly
• Visit the Griffith Observatory

Celebration: Re-build the lost connections

When I think of celebrating, I think of being around people, and that is another thing the pandemic took from us. Technology, especially social media, hinted at

bringing us closer together while they somehow isolated us more, and I have a strong desire to reconnect with people on a human level, even if I don't quite know how. There are so many wonderful people I've had in my life who may have become relegated to being facebook friends and not much else, and I want to try to re-build those even if it means facing a lot of potential rejection. As joked about recently, it can't be Christmas every day, we have to have the lows in order to celebrate the highs, and I want to bring those highs back. I also want to recoup the connection to writing, journaling and capturing my own life, work and dreams. 

• Start daily journal even if 3-sentence recap
• Plan for and stay on top of sending birthday, anniversary, holiday cards
• Seek advice and ask curious questions of people in my life

Empowerment: Create (and use) the tools to get out of my own way

I recently reviewed the ideas from Bill Gates' "The Road Ahead" from 1995, when the Internet was still a fledgling place for researchers and scientists and "The Information Superhighway" carried promise which has largely been fulfilled in ways

any futurist struggled to foresee. It reminded me of how far we've come, but also, what elements have yet to really come to fruition as predicted. I think the technology is here, but we have to figure out how best to use it. Truly, that has been a philosophy of mine for years, and only becomes truer with more technological advances. The better tech we have in our palms, the harder it is to discern between the best ways to use it and the easiest ways to use it, the latter of which is a trap, what many books and articles are warning us against. While Viva Magenta is a lot about getting back to nature and drawing inspiration from nature, I think it also is about carving our path in this world of technology, which is to say that it doesn't have to work against us but in fact can aide us in our desire to connect with nature and being our best in our own nature. That is what futurists envisioned as these new technologies emerged, and that is for us individually to choose with intention on when and how technology serves us. 

• Auto-add/update calendar with activities of interest
• Utilize AI and scripting to hone trends and market gaps
• 3D print some useful items
• Invest in architecture software and education, and design home of the future
• Influence recruiting at work via communications team - consider TikTok channel
• Develop better graphics and display for my Show Mode

I hope you find some inspiration, or considerations, for the coming year. With all the hopes and aspirations, be kind to yourself, be generous with others, and make 2023 a great year in your own way!