We almost never arrive at the end of the year the way we think we will.

Instead of greeting some newly enlightened or evolved version of ourselves, come December 31st you’d be forgiven for thinking the person in the mirror had just stepped off a long-haul flight plagued by missed connections, flight delays and lost luggage. Face weary, eyes bloodshot, limbs heavy, and a soul which - having been sanded down by the past twelve months - feels about as resilient as wet tissue paper.

But regardless of your current state, if you’ve made it to the end of the year, we’re convinced no one gets here without four things:

Grit. Grace. Luck. And, community.

In your suitcase of self, grit is the possession you wish you didn’t need but are always glad you packed – because the presence of grit usually means the presence of hardship. When all signs point to failure, grit is the voice that tells you to stay the course. It reminds you not to just hope things will get better, but to take decisive action to get to where you’re going. Grit is what you muster up when it feels like the odds are stacked against you, and it’s your only shot of winning when they actually are. In the toughest seasons of your life, you’ll astonish yourself with how much grit you have – you’ll just wish you didn’t have to go through hell to find out.

Grace is the gift you give yourself and others. Life is too unpredictable and unfair to survive a year without it. So you give it to yourself when you make a mistake or pivot in the wrong direction or jump off the train too early, which you inevitably will. And you extend it to others when they fall short of your expectations or break a promise or put their own needs ahead of yours, which they inevitably will. Grace is the presence of humility and the absence of ego, and it reminds us that most things aren’t about us.

Luck is a tricky thing. You never have any control over your own or others, but there’s always a little floating around. In your suitcase of self, there could be luck of circumstance or timing or opportunity, which is just to say: Don’t congratulate yourself too much nor berate yourself either. The key is to run as though you’re the underdog in a race against giants. And no matter what kind of luck landed in your lap this year, remember that you will always be on time for your own life, and you will always be too late or too early for somebody else’s. Now read that again.

And then there’s community. If the last six years of Maggie Marilyn have taught us anything, it’s that the solutions to the climate crisis will be found, organised, and actioned in the spaces where community is not only encouraged but essential to its survival. Community is what you walk alongside when you feel energised and it’s what you lean against when you need to catch your breath. Community has the power to change the world, but first it changes the individual, and our belief in physical spaces endures because we’ve seen what happens when a person sees it as their divine duty to belong. So retreat when you need to, but always have a plan to come back. And be wary of anyone - including yourself - who tries to convince you that you can go it alone.

From now through to January 1st, team MM will be going offline. Because for all the ways social media brings people together and builds movements that can change the world, there’s a unique gift to be found when you untether yourself from the version of you that exists on your phone. Being online has a sneaky way of giving you a false sense of control and an inflated sense of power. You waste a lot of time seeking validation for your choices and seeking evidence of the choices of others. But when you step away, you’re afforded a break from it all. You can stop analysing what’s already happened or worrying too much about what’s to come, and instead suspend yourself in that brief, beautiful place between your past and your future.

These holidays, we hope you find time to do the same. To marvel at how far you’ve come, and the grit, grace, luck, and community that helped you get here. And we hope you know that with those four things in your suitcase of self, 2023 is yours for the taking.

Have a safe and happy holiday season and we’ll see you on the other side,

Team MM

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