Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve.

There always seems to be high expectations surrounding this night. You need to end it big with some huge party and sparklers and champagne and kissing someone at midnight.

I’ve definitely put a bit of pressure on my plans for the evening with all this talk of the end of a decade and the start of the roaring 20’s. There’s this idea that I have to make it special, end this year well in order to start the new year well.

As if the promise of new beginnings can be compromised by the way things ended.

But things can be completely new and untouched.

And how well things end and how well they begin is often dictated by perspective.

I work at a coffee shop and while I steam the milk for a customer’s latte, I casually ask, “What are your plans for New Year’s?”

Most people say they’re having dinner with a few friends or family. Maybe just watching the ball drop on TV.

Unashamedly, someone shared that they’re usually asleep by 9pm. And I don’t think they’re letting the ball drop in their life. I think they are living their life the right way for them.

So why isn’t that true for me. I sometimes put this pressure to reaffirm my life through social activities. I’ll find myself reviewing my “social resume” in my head. I think of how many parties I’ve attended, how many events I’ve gone to, how many dinners out with friends I’ve had. And it never seems to compare to the more exciting social lives of other people. (Let’s thank curated social media for that).

The majority of people don’t have this active social life I think I’m supposed to have. I need to let go of this pressure to have my life look a specific way.

I have a life, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to live it the right way for me.

Maybe it does mean going to a big and loud Great Gatsby party, or maybe it means going to a small New Year’s Eve dinner with friends, or simply watching the fireworks on the TV with my family. Whatever I end up doing tomorrow, I’m going to make sure it’s how I want to spend it.