Some thoughts for the new year
Meditation on intention
Intention - what a delightful concept! It has a liminal quality to it. It's both an act of keeping something in mind and working towards it. A balance of being and doing. It marries the serenity of vision with the tenacity of action.
At the beginning of a new year, there are a lot of concepts being thrown around: reviews, goals, dreams, visions. Each with their own flavor and usefulness. Over the years, I've done end-of-year reviews and as most people, I've also created a plan for the 365 days ahead.
But this year, apart from everything else, I'm being called to set "intentions". I think that’s because I’m more clear than ever on what’s important and worth pursuing, so I didn’t feel like spending two weeks at the end of December to map an outrageously detailed “action plan” that will undoubtedly need adjustments by the third week into the new year.
So to keep things simple, I made my intentions one word each. This came naturally, as a consequence of the certainty in my mind, which feels like a beam of light illuminating my thoughts.
Here are my 2024 intentions, written five minutes past midnight on January first:
Write. Read. Notice. Move. Run. Breathe. Create. Remember. Be.
Choosing my intentions took perhaps two minutes. But my thinking on them lingered long after. I got pulled into a maze of thought on the nature of these fragile seeds of mind.
To in-tend. Sounds like you will tend to something. Nurture it with care.
An intention isn't an obligation. It doesn't weigh over you with the burden of a step-by-step strategy.
The story of language is the story of us - reflecting the fabric of our collective consciousness - so let’s travel back in time to the origins of “intention.” The roots of the word go back - as many English words do - to Latin, where "in" and "tendere" were joined to give us "intendere," which literally means stretching towards.
"Intentio" then made its way into Old French, giving us "intencion."1 Around this time, the mere physical connotation of the word took on a metaphorical value. Just like brain regions dedicated to bodily actions were appropriated for more subtle functions, so too the meaning of "intention" evolved to include a symbolic one. It now refers to the mental action of aiming towards something.
At first glance, differentiating between "I plan to do x" and "I intend to do x" might seem like splitting hairs, but it's an essential distinction. Plans sometimes feel like strong-arming life into submission, while intentions allow for the inherent messiness of life to breathe. An intention is not a half-assed plan. It’s the acknowledgement that you can’t micromanage your existence. Intentions serve as a compass, rather than a map.
When looking back on the New Year resolutions I had four years ago, I flinch and smile at the same time - flinch because my plans were more rigid and definitive than the Rosetta stone, and smile because I recognize how far I’ve come. I’ve ditched the high resolution map for a well-calibrated compass. My intentions this year are more freeing than the plans I had in the past, because there’s no fixed way I imposed on myself of doing anything. Take my intention to write. I don’t have a schedule or a number of words I need to hit each day. I know I’ll oscillate between 100 words one day and 2000 on others. The aim is to do it, in whatever form.
Because ”intention" refers to more than just one thing - the act of intending, the thing intended, the state of mind you’re in - you can flow between these at various points in your day.
If you're old enough, then you're probably familiar with old school radios - those charmingly clunky mystery boxes that inform you about the weather and sometimes play your favorite song. They usually have two knobs: one for the volume, the other for the frequency. To me, when you set an intention, you choose to be on a certain wavelength, like a radio signal.
Just as a slight turn of the dial can completely change what you hear on a radio, small shifts in perspective or behavior, guided by intention, can have profound impacts on one’s life. Going back, again and again, to your intention is akin to tuning into a radio frequency after you've temporarily lost the signal - an act that demands attention and resilience. And when you finally hit that sweet spot, it feels as if the electrical current from that frequency hits you like lightning, giving you a new lease of life.
I see an intention as a big overhead sign on the highway of my life. It always points to the right path. And if I make a wrong exit, it shows up on that road as well, gently nudging me back on the correct lane.
As the year unfolds, I invite you to reflect on what you’d like your intentions to be. This can be a helpful exercise especially if you become overwhelmed by plans or lofty goals, or want a bird’s eye view for the year ahead. What will the big signs on your life’s highway read? Think of actual ones you find on highways. They don’t say “You’ll arrive in Paris in 75 km - well, technically, 52,2 km if you include the outer suburbs, so you have 1 more hour of driving” Instead, it’s just “Paris 75 km.” Your intentions don’t need to be one word, but I’d recommend not bloating them with details either.
When it comes to setting your intentions, I find it helpful to reflect on a few questions to help shape them:
Right now, what works in your life? (think of your relationships, work, inner life, leisure, movement, spirituality)
What do you want to double down on?
What three things give you the most joy?
What three things drain you?
What was your biggest disappointment last year?
If the upcoming year were to be a chapter in your book, what would you title it?
This essay has been made better with the amazing feedback from
, , and .The decline of the Roman Empire caused Latin to fragment into different dialects, which diverged from the original language and better reflected the speech patterns and culture of a region. In the area of modern-day France, this process gave birth to Old French.
Beautiful!