Things I won’t give a f*ck about in 2016

I was out at dinner with friends just before New Year’s Eve, and in my semi-sozzled state after two Japanese plum wines (I’m a cheap date), decided to make some New Year’s resolutions. This is a decision I’ve come to regret. The three things I have on my list: read more, write more, pick up yoga — have not really varied for the past five years.

I still waste far too much time fucking around on the internet and as a consequence, read far fewer books and write a lot less than I should…no, wait, than I want to, because no-one should anything. I have also recently signed up for Netflix, a decision that I know will devour even more of my free hours than the Loch Ness monster eats children.

As for the yoga…every now and then, I scroll through photos on Instagram of friends and strangers with impossibly svelte bodies, looking all toned, tanned and blissed out on faraway beaches and dream that I too, can look that way. I’m sure I can, if I do an hour of yoga daily, run three times a week and snack on cold filtered water and my own sense of saintliness the rest of the time.

So after a friend sent me a Guardian article about a woman who had written a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving A F*ck — which sounds much more like my type of thing than Marie Kondo’s elegy to minimalism (I mean FFS, folding socks into little soldiers?), I’ve decided to do a complete 180 on my New Year’s resolutions.

I present to you, in chaotic order, a list of things I won’t give a fuck about in 2016:

Not going out enough

I like my Netflix, I like my chill, and I like long stretches of alone time at home with nothing but my cat and English Breakfast tea. What I will now refuse to give a fuck about is whether I should be out more. I’m not 21 anymore, and if I could go back in time and give myself some advice, it would be to spend less time fretting about not going out and actually doing something more constructive with all that anxiety. This also gives me license to invest in some super comfy loungewear. Hello, Peter Alexander.

Being called a cat lady

Actually, I stopped caring about this a few years ago and it’s been awesome ever since. I also look forward to meeting Gareth Morgan one day.

That I like shopping

The oceans are warming at an alarming rate, and chances are that in 50 years’ time, the world as we know it will look very different but….I like shopping. I shouldn’t. It’s crass, consumerist and a symbol of all that’s wrong with our capitalist society. There’s probably some psychological theory that can link it all back to my childhood and being the youngest, but I don’t care. I like it, and as long as I don’t spend all my money on cheap crap made by child slaves, then I plan to carry on.

Being a wage slave

Heck, I’d still love to throw in the day job, but I’m never going to be the kind of girl who can live off the land and off the grid until the zombie apocalypse forces me too. Besides, what I do for a salary isn’t too bad. And it gives me breathing room to plan a proper escape.

Not being enough

Pretty enough, thin enough, funny enough, cool enough, good enough. No longer will I worry about why someone has decided to stop talking to me, unfriend me or say mean things to me. Everyone has shit in their lives. Maybe they got sick of my shit, maybe they have too much of their own shit to handle. Whatever it is, I’m going to work on giving less of a fuck about not being enough.