New Year Anecdotes

By Jamie Partida

The start of a New Year offers ample opportunity for making changes, crafting resolutions, and doing your best to stick to them. It’s the time for leaving behind old habits that no longer serve you, and forming new habits. There’s just something about turning a new page on the calendar that allows us to set the intention of making this a better year than the one before.

Since I’ve started smoking cannabis more regularly over the last few years, my ritual has become to smoke a packed joint, (preferably a sativa dominant strain with high CBD) on New Year's Day and write down all the goals I have while listening to my favorite jazz and drinking a fresh cup of coffee. The perfect way for me to start a new year is by doing the things I love the most while making my list of plans and promises to myself to continue to grow and improve.

Recently, I’ve wanted to invest more time in learning about the cannabis growing process, and it has become a new resolution every year to get closer to my goal of growing cannabis more consistently. This year, I started the process of indoor growing by purchasing a few items to build my own grow tent. I researched the best methods and equipment, and sat down with a friend who is an engineer to build a plan to begin our project. While I’m working on getting the perfect set up and beginning the cultivating process, I am still learning and trying out new products. Another resolution has been to become a more conscious consumer when it comes to cannabis products, and that means using the right strains at the right times, as well as being more mindful of the ethics of the source. It has been a duty of mine to support only companies that comply with social equity and sustainable cultivation.

My resolutions tend to be the same every year: I’m always trying to be more productive, read more books, save more money, spend less, lose weight, get toned, the list goes on and on...I once read somewhere that it takes 21 days to establish a new habit, so it’s usually by the third week of January that I’m able to filter out those resolutions that didn’t stick to my habitual life and save them for another new beginning. I have found that a good way to reflect on resolutions and goals are to spend some time reciting them to yourself in the mirror and using them as mantras during meditation.

The thing I’ve come to learn over the years is that if we want to make a change and make it stick, we must be consistent and hold ourselves accountable. 2021 will hopefully be better than the year of the Coronavirus Pandemic, and we can only be hopeful as we go into a new year with open minds and open hearts.