Throughout my whole childhood, I made sure to designate some time each winter break to crafting a well thought out New Year’s Resolutions list. The holiday season has always elicited a strong sense of inspiration and made me super hopeful about the potential of the year ahead. I tried to be specific when it came to making my resolutions, having two separate lists: one for tangible goals to achieve in the coming year, and one for more intangible goals: such as personality traits and habits to work on developing in the year ahead. The first list always featured big benchmarks, from getting my driver’s license to running my first half marathon. The second allowed me to do some introspection.  I would encourage myself to improve my Russian and practice guitar for fun more often (both of which were featured on the lists too many times throughout the years before I gave up…oops?) I was decent at accomplishing everything I set out to do because I’m the kind of person that thrives in accomplishing things when the steps to get there are within my control. I knew the exact measures that I had to take to achieve each goal, whether it be the more tangible or more character-based ones. At the end of each year, I would sit down for my annual ego boost as I checked off resolution after resolution. And then came 2020. The year of absolutely no control. 

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