Make SMART resolutions
By: Aneesha Narang
What is the point in wanting to achieve a resolution for the year if you’re not going to do anything about it a week or month after making it? Are you trying to make yourself feel guilty? Are you trying to overstress your body while you also start a new semester, a new year, or a new day?
Continuously make achievable goals and routines to help you stay focused on the prize. The prize could be a degree, a job, or a healthy lifestyle. Whatever your goals may be, let there be a realistic end to the goal. Every day, create a new goal to focus on and determine when the goal will be completed. A goal or resolution will do nothing for you if your mind is not focused on the end result.
Practice what you preach: A note on hypocrisy and mental health
By: Darien Johnsen
If we’re going to preach about supporting people with mental health issues, then we need to be treating people accordingly. As a society, we need to stop treating others like robots (employers, I’m lookin’ at you) and expecting people to cover up their feelings if they’re in turmoil so we don’t have to deal with it. If we’re going to ask someone how they are, we should be prepared to actually accept the fact that the response might not be “good.” It may mean that we have to be prepared to respond appropriately, and willing to listen if it’s not so good, even if we have our own struggles going on. In fact, sometimes putting aside our anguish and focusing on assisting others can actually help alleviate some of our own distress. Practising love toward each other is all we really have in this world. The more we can all practise this, the better our world could become, and the more love we will receive in return. When we are loving toward someone, they’ll be loving in response. Let caring and being kind toward each other be all of our New Year’s resolution for 2020.
Planes, trains, and automobiles
By: Andrea Sadowski
There is a certain spot on campus that I grew quite fond of last semester. It was a desk in the production room of The Cascade office: the desk closest to the giant printer. From that desk I watched the sky turn from blue to pink to purple. I shed tears over massive essays that were due the next day that I still needed to write 1,000 words for. I calmed myself by seeing the clouds form from inanimate blobs into the shapes of various animals. I listened to the coffee pot rumble and the microwave beep. I watched airplanes fly into and out of Abbotsford Airport, wishing I was on one of them instead of writing papers. I listened to the horns of distant trains rumbling through Abbotsford. If I was lucky, I even got to hear kids doing donuts with their cars in the SUS parking lot. It was an excellent spot to get work done.
Not worth complaining about
By: Carissa Wiens
It’s easy to find things to complain about — with the front right tire of my car being semi-flat every time I look at it to my nicest pair of jeans feeling much smaller each time I put them on — but one thing’s not worthy of any complaints: marrying into a family that, instead of baking gingerbread cookies together on Christmas Eve, goes to Mexico to get away from the rain and brings me along.
Leaving the country at this time of year is always a delight. It’s even more of a delight when the in-laws cover the cost of your beach-front accommodation and your luggage can carry all of the books you said you would read in 2019.
But to me, my time in Mexico is more than the hours of reading in the sun or the water splashing at my feet: it’s about the ability to purchase one litre of margarita for 120 pesos ($8.23 CAD). That’s right, one litre — 1,000 ml. That is a blessing Mexico has that Canada will never be able to measure up to and something I will never complain about in this sunny country.
Author’s note: this piece was written on the beach in Mexico.
Illustration: Kelly Ning/The Cascade
Andrea Sadowski is working towards her BA in Global Development Studies, with a minor in anthropology and Mennonite studies. When she's not sitting in front of her computer, Andrea enjoys climbing mountains, sleeping outside, cooking delicious plant-based food, talking to animals, and dismantling the patriarchy.
