Behold the Year of the Rabbit

Apologies for the self-indulgence

This is a post about my plans for the year of the rabbit. As of now I am currently living in an economically declining country on the edge of a successful and (mostly) civil continent where it left the main players club. This leaving, commonly known as Brexit, has been an unmitigated disaster. On a societal level, everything is much much worse than it was before.

There are multiple strikes going on. There is a health crisis. An energy crisis. There is a cost-of-living crisis. I would say there is even something of a national identity crisis. The people in charge are beset by scandal after scandal. Showing great interest in self-preservation and scant interest in governing effectively. How can the year of the rabbit fix any of this? I have no belief it will. This scene of dystopia may take half a decade to turn around, yet I feel lucky. Why though? It may be because I am a flaming rabbit!

Let me explain

According to this website on the Chinese Zodiac system I am a rabbit with the element of fire (due to my birth year 1987). Like many people I tend not to put much faith in astrological systems. However, having skimmed through that page I’d say they’ve got a few things on the money. I particularly like this interpretation of rabbit personalities:

To outsiders, the Rabbit’s kindness may make them seem soft and weak. In truth, the Rabbit’s quiet personality hides their confidence and strength. They are steadily moving towards their goal, no matter what negativity the others give them.

https://chinesenewyear.net/zodiac/rabbit/

The page goes on to make assertions about people born in the year of the rabbit. I like it. Apparently, they have good reasoning and great amounts of empathy. Needless to say I feel that describes me well. So this is my year and I am taking that as a sign that 2023, the year of the rabbit, will bring positive events and opportunities for me. Yet culturally that is a strange way to look at it. The Chinese traditionalists believe your birth year is when you are most vulnerable to bad luck as you are closest to your spiritual ‘rebirth’.

Good old luck

I’ve talked about luck many times on this blog. Years ago I wrote in a cold mid-January about the importance of gratitude when considering being lucky. More recently I have suggested keeping a healthy perspective on events is what matters. I guess there are links between those notions. Hopefully the four pairs of bright red boxers my other half bought me will ward off those pesky Chinese demons of misfortune!

I’ll have to be proactive in making this my year. So far so good. In the first few weeks of the Gregorian Calendar year I have cleared a work-out space in my garage, erected a punchbag and done eight workouts. I had intended to do twelve but everything has just been busy. There’s an ancient saying, life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.

Recently, my faithful electronic tag (or Fitbit) has tracked me everywhere I’ve been. The device provides a whole host of metrics for anyone interested. Today’s ‘readiness score’ is 98/100. I should be in the gym. Little does it know I have a lingering cold and cant face the sub-zero temperature of my garage studio to do a work-out. I am still undecided whether Fitbits are just gimmicks but I guess the presence of it has reminded me of my underlying intentions to exercise more.

Taking on the year of the rabbit

This year, physical fitness and diet will be my focus. Less sugar, more carrots. Closely followed by healthy relationships. I’ll be reaching out as much as I can in 2023. Thirdly, learning some spoken Chinese is on the annual wish-list. And finally, some more career stability would be a blessing. Last year was kind of uncertain in the long-term employment stakes. While I remained overwhelmingly optimistic during 2022 in terms of job securing, navigating it was tricky.

It was Confucious who said (something like) if you are not making progress towards your goals, adjust your steps, not your goals. It’s the steps that are important. I set my resolutions differently this year but without the steps they are just vague nice-to-haves. Keith Cunningham suggests getting rid of goals entirely and replacing them with non-negotiable standards to live by. Although I feel I’m not quite a forceful enough character to display that kind of thinking. Therefore, I’ll stick with more traditional ideas of goals.

It’s hard to have the right systems in place to deliver on personal goals so I’ve begun tracking these things in Notion. I found a handy habit tracker template and modified it to my liking. There’s loads of this kind of stuff around these days. It seems nothing is made to last (especially these days) but inventiveness is eternal. Put another way, we live in a world of modernity where everything is temporal or disposable, but the core elements of human nature persist.

Final thought

The year of the rabbit will bring what it will bring. Nobody owns a crystal ball that accurately predicts what the future holds anyway. And in the immortal words of Robbie Burns: The best laid plans, of mice and men, often go awry. That said, whilst the nation descends into turmoil and stagnation I hope to pick out a path to personal glory. The unforeseen things the year holds may even prove to be welcome chances for development and change.

Psychologically, those who think they can do many things well, can do more than they think. Those who think they cant do things well, are generally less capable. It’s a mindset thing. In this vein of thinking I plan to seize the day, or rather year in this case. The year of the rabbit is upon us. I hope you have a good one, I wish you all the best. I will of course take what comes but I definitely plan to make the most of my Zodiac rabbit/fire energy.