Hard Pass or Hell Yes?
Airplane mode for the win
If it’s not a yes it’s no is an axiom I live by. This simple guideline has saved me money from not buying stuff that was just meh. It’s prevented me from doing things I was tepid about. It clarifies who I am and what I care about. Simple but indispensable.
Realizing that – spoiler alert – my time is not infinite (neither is yours, btw), in 2025 I want to crank it up. This year, I'm looking for hard passes and hell yesses.
Hard Pass:
Stories about serial killers, violence, exploitation. What we consume shapes us, so I am no longer plumbing the dark side for entertainment. Get outta my psyche.
The surveillance economy: From clickbait to cat videos, algorithms study our behavior to glue us to them. While I’ll still look things up online, I am taking my privacy seriously. Hello, airplane mode.
Hell Yes:
More Meditation! Turns out, my mind is a beautiful space to encounter all that I am not. Not my thoughts, not my senses, not my memories, not my body, not even my writing. Also to experience what I am. Vast as sky (you are too, btw).
More Love Time! Time with animals. With my husband, my family and friends. Time in nature. Time swimming. Time dancing. Time doing things that fill me with love and reconnect me to love as the source of all life.
More Collaboration! I’m a solitary person by nature, happiest alone. And yet, weirdly, I find myself wanting more people in my life. Looking forward to the collabs already in motion and curious to see who else shows up.
How about you? What are your hard passes and hell yesses? Drop me a line or leave a comment on Facebook. Let's roar in the New Year!
Cool Horizons
Speaking of hell yesses, we have a lot in development for Certain Age, too.
Fiction! Coming in 2025, we’ll include short stories and novel excerpts in our mix. If you write fiction, head over to our writers guidelines to see the deets and by all means, submit your work!
Events! Let’s gather, talk, laugh and be amazed together. To kick it off, we're planning a Zoom conversation with Colleen Dupont, star of Les Frenchies Travel. Our profile of Colleen is the single most read piece on Certain Age ever, and for good reason. Collen has the uncanny ability to pierce through layers of shame that so many of us carry to uncover and express truth.
I can’t wait for you to get to know her more deeply. Details soon!
XO Jean