I’ve left it pretty late to commit to New Years’ resolutions.

In no small part because I’ve made myself promises a thousand times, and broken them a thousand times. I’ve started with the best of intentions, and fallen back into vices – I’ve stayed cosy in bed when I should be going to the gym, I’ve been smoking and drinking. Flicking endlessly on my phone, because these things were comfortable. More comfortable than anything I think I probably ought to be doing.

This year, by and large, my main resolution is to deny myself my comfort zone.

To see, and to smell, and to breathe, and to live.

I think the decision has been a long time coming; it’s been a year since I started this blog, with nothing really to show for it. But the real first step really happened about mid-December, last year – I bought a dumb phone.

The surprising part about it was that it caused me no small measure of pain. For the first few days, I was scrambling at my pocket whenever I felt bored, only to be met by a small screen offering no comfort. No reels, just a tool.

My mind started to wander, as I stood on the doorstep on chilly December mornings having a smoke (quitting is a work in progress), and I noticed that I hadn’t really sat still in a real way for years.

I have goals for this year. I’m getting married and want to look good in photos I’m going to be looking at for the rest of my life; I want to make the most of my time as I’m moving into my 30s and really gaining an understanding of how a moment really is worth its weight in gold; I want to connect more with my family.

But, somehow, I feel like they’re somehow secondary. As though the only real way I’m going to achieve a change, after starting and failing a thousand times, is to change the way I live – and disconnecting myself in the way that a dumb phone has brought has actually given me some measure of peace and focus, at least enough to consider everything else.

On the topic of focus, I found my old Fujifilm FinePix AV200 digital camera today, a point-and-shoot from when I was a teenager. I figured it would be a decent replacement for the camera I took for granted on my iPhone, which I now sorely miss. “Just for now,” I told myself, “until I find something better”.

Its interface is clunky to use, and it’s inconvenient to carry, but that’s kind of the point. Using it makes it all the more intentional when I snap that shot, just like T9 texting makes it all the more intentional when I reach out to a friend.

In a way, reaching out to old tech has so far made me think about acting intentionally, and I think that’s the biggest first step I could take moving into 2026, and embracing discomfort in order to lead a more meaningful life.