Ins and Outs for 2025
New Year’s resolutions are so last year…
The Ins
Saying peoples’ names to them when you’re speaking – Ahh whenever someone says my name when we are chatting, I do have to stop myself from blushing. It exudes confidence and general sexiness. We should all be doing it in areas of both business and pleasure.
Act like everyone is in love with you – why not? Try it for one day and you will have the best day ever.
Modesty – I hate hate, HATE the sudden emergence of bragging as commonplace in society. I think people have mistaken it as being synonymous with self-confidence. But that is so very wrong. Modesty and humility are so attractive and the sign of a true quiet confidence.
Pleasure in the simple things – this is a tale as old as time, but one which people don’t truly realise until it is too late. If you think about the times where you have been happiest, or had the most fun, it is not when you have splashed the cash on something material, it is always the simple intangible moments which money doesn’t get close to.
Good welcomes – makes people feel special and wanted and it sets the best tone.
Smile at strangers – a world where strangers smile at each other is one which I think everyone would like to be in.
Acting your age – if you are in your twenties, why are you acting like you’re in your 30s/40s/50s? What is the actual point? C’mon now. It is a decade which you won’t get back. If I ever felt I was slipping into this I would imagine myself at the age of 80/90. I would think about my response to the question, how should one live their 20s? I would wonder whether I would say: your 20s are for organisation, responsibility, routine and an air of seriousness. WHAT? I would be mortified if I looked back at this decade and saw it littered with early nights, discipline and a general sad de vivre. It should be filled with fun, carefree selfishness and huge joi de vivre, in the comfort of the knowledge that most 50-year-olds would sell their fortunes to have your youth.
Be sparing with compliments – it is the best when you receive a compliment from someone who rarely gives one; you not only remember it, but you believe it. If someone is giving out compliments like they’re sweets, they lose their meaning and value entirely.
Gossiping – I just think gossiping is vital for a good life and I think it should be normalised. Humans are social beings who differ drastically. There are going to be things that annoy us, and it is healthy to offload and dissect it with someone else.
Avoid small talk! We should normalise just starting conversations with relative strangers with questions like “tell me about your experience with love?”
Spontaneity – life is definitely more fun if you have the propensity to be spontaneous.
Remember every day that comparison, expectation and judgement are the thieves of joy – this is too true, and these three things are pretty much the source of all unhappiness. There are always going to be people who are doing better than you, always going to be things you think could have gone better and always going to be people to judge. Choose to not indulge in them because they bring no good to anyone.
Only get into a relationship with someone who sweeps you off your feet – in the meantime, hang out with friends – because what are you DOWENG? What are you doing for reals? You have ended up in a relationship with someone who you had to convince yourself you fancy, and now you think you like them simply because you have spent some time with them meaning that now you’re attached; recognise the difference and pluck up the courage to get rid.
Effort into cooking – making yourself a yummy, thought-out meal at the end of each day is a kind of therapy, it shows that you think you deserve nourishing and looking after.
Never have a Friday night in – for many of the reasons mentioned above.
The Outs
People being too introspective and talking about insignificant things, when people say sentences which are essentially a stream of consciousness like “I was going to get semi-skimmed milk and then I saw the skimmed milk on offer so I thought---" SHUT UP it is SO boring I actually could not give a flying fuck. I’d rather listen to paint dry, yes, listen. Look at things outside of yourself PLEASE and realise that what you’re saying would send woodlice to sleep.
Not being happy for your mates – this is something which I have really noticed this year (in my final year of university). People seem to think that just because someone else has got a good grade in an essay, or got a job offer, it has a negative impact on them. It doesn’t! Whether a good thing happens to them does not mean it is bad for you. If you are feeling jealous then you need to recognise that and realise that your friends’ successes are not your failures. It is so nice when you can feel that someone is genuinely happy for you, and not just saying what they feel they should say through gritted teeth. “I got a high 2:1” (when asked what they got in their degree) - no because you do sound like a nob and please if you do want people to like you, don’t say it.
When people are saying a story and refer to themselves in the third person – example: And they saw me, and they were like “Fiona!” I haven’t seen you in ages ahh I’ve missed you”. It is so subtle but it’s annoying, especially when (and there usually is), a subtle brag in there.
The clean girl aesthetic – where did this unrewarding aesthetic come from? Out with clean girl and in with the feral messy creature.
Matcha – it does just taste like grassy milk, and I strongly believe that people buy it to feel put together not because they just love a matcha. It exists on the same plane as designer handbags, not wanting people to see you with a Greggs coffee in hand, and Waitrose.
Stinginess – I am talking about the kind of stinginess where people are funny about you using a tiny bit of their toothpaste/ketchup/salt on a one off. It is honestly just an awful trait, nothing more to be said on that one because my blood pressure will rise.
Being late – just shows you think your time is more important than the other person’s.
Social media and phones in general – it’s just SO, so, so BORING and I now genuinely want to spend less time with people who are always on their phones. When two people are having a drink, and one of them goes to the loo, the other one will ALWAYS whip out their phone immediately because they have just forgotten how to sit for one second with their own thoughts, or take in their surroundings, or chat to the people next to them. I saw a scary statistic which said 4 hours a day of screentime equates to 16 years of someone’s life. Normalise just leaving your phone when you don’t actually need it, use it for calls and texts like it was originally invented for and realise that the majority of people are completely addicted to them and wasting their lives; opt out of it.