A New Year's dialogue with myself

Left: Me with New Year yolka, Odessa, Ukraine, circa 1987. Right: Me with 3-year-old daughter, NYC, December 2023.

As January 1 approaches, I predictably feel a lot of internal pressure to write some kind of “year-in-review” post.

Most of it I can chalk up to the nauseatingly familiar drone of my resident inner drill sergeant. “Look at all these other influencers posting their years-in-review, no wonder they have so many more followers”; “isn’t this supposed to be your whole schtick?”; “how do you expect to impress the top-level people if you can’t even come up with something inspiring to post on f*cking New Year’s?”; that sort of drivel.

But if I listen closely, there’s also the quiet undertone of some sort of genuine longing, some honest, grasping desire to reflect and connect—which my inner drill sergeant is of course all too eager to assimilate into his cacophonous chorus of guilt and shame.

So let me now do what I might coach a client to do: take that longing aside, give it some breathing room, feed it with my interest and attention and energy, show it I really do care; empower it to say what i…