Year of the dragon

The Lunar New Year is almost here. The holiday is a celebration of the arrival of spring, however for me, it’s the energy of Christmas x 10. It is a time to get ready for the new year, to spring clean your life, starting with the easy stuff, decluttering physical objects. All that you have accumulated in the last year, is it serving you? The new year calls for literally sweeping away the past year’s disasters, getting rid of “dust” and making space for good luck, good fortune and most importantly good energy to enter your home.

Those chores that you’ve been postponing need to get done. When you have gone room to room, decluttering everything you own, you can start deep cleaning like someone important is coming to visit you. Not just a superficial clean, but down to the blinds and vents. After you’ve finished cleaning, you can decorate with red, gold, lucky colors, and symbolic fruits, flowers that represent abundance and prosperity.

Next, there’s the personal you to get in order. Haircut, new look, new you, it must happen before the day of the New Year. Some get new clothes for the day, but I did not grow up doing that.

Finances, have you paid back your debt to people or institutions? Is your budget serving you? Are you spending habits aligned with your goals, investments, intentions?

I recently completed a huge milestone. I paid back $100,000 in private student nursing school loans early in 4 years on a 10-year loan. I accomplished this not by austerity or restriction, but rather investing energy and resources only in things that matched my lifestyle, supporting activities that made me feel nourished. Where in your life can you tolerate discomfort to get where you want to go?

A lot of that for me is about recycling resources, conscious buying (do I need it, love it, want it? If no, it goes back on the shelf), and reducing waste.

I’m also working on thinking about more ways I can be generous in my personal life and work life. What is easy and simple for me that is hard for other people? What areas in my life am I part of a dominant group (race, class, sexual identity, etc.) and can be an ally to someone else? What is one action per week I can use my privilege to help someone else to bring them up? For example, if you are a US citizen, can you help a refugee or immigrant?

My intentions for 2024: I’m going to learn how to braid my hair. I’ve always wanted to look like the other nurses with their hair braided neatly for work. I’m going to work on rebuilding my savings (after I’ve depleted it to pay back my private student loans). I’m still working on paying back my government student loans.

Drumroll – I won a spot in the bear lottery to go to Alaska, Katmai National Park in August 2025. It’s going to be a very pricey vacation so I need to save about 2 paychecks to see the bears from Fat Bear Week, up close and personal with a guide, in the river, catching wild salmon and trout. Day 2 will be a bus tour of the national park and day 3 fly fishing. 6,000 people entered the lottery, for 16 spots every day of summer season.

Wishing you bright fierce energy and success for 2024, the year of the dragon.