Happy 2026 rockstars!

We have officially completed the 26-hour global roll-over into the new year, and it is 2026 for everyone.

I love going on Instagram on New Year’s Eve because my friends in different time zones share their fireworks, champagne toasts, midnight kisses hours before I even think about turning on the TV to watch the ball drop.

My NYE last night was lots of fun – relaxing, hilarious, and exactly what I needed. My 2026 started off with me sleeping in. I had high hopes to wake up early today to “start the year right,” but honestly? The new year starting in January is a scam. January, right at the beginning of proper winter, when the days have only just started getting longer, is not the time for forced motivation or big pushes forward. It’s a time to reconnect, reflect, and attune.

This morning, one of my good friends texted me asking me about my goals and resolutions. When I told him that I wasn’t sure yet, he replied, “Sigh are you telling me I have to wait for the next blog post to hear what you have planned / envisioned for yourself?” And I realized … yes. Mostly because if I don’t blog about it, I probably won’t think about it. Oops.

I woke up today and fell in love with several quotes that I know will represent my 2026. People say you should pick a “word” that embodies your year. I’ve been trying to figure out what that word is, based on who I am, based on my goals, based on the version of me that I would like to grow into.

So here I am, finally thinking about my resolutions and I realized they’re all related to several quotes that I fell in love with on this first day of 2026:

• Live extraordinarily
• Go outside (and look at the sky)
• Spread warmth

Physics of Heat Transfer

I tend to think in physics but write in meaning.

I saw a cute (and very inaccurate) quote that:

“The reason you get cold when you go outside on a freezing day is that your tiny human body is trying to warm up the entire universe.”

I have since confirmed that this is not physically accurate; yes thermal energy flows from my warmer body to the colder environment, and on a freezing day, heat loss accelerates. But when I step outside on a freezing morning, I am a small, bright, defiance against the universe. My body is warm, busy, and alive (atoms jittering with energy), while the air waits, slower and emptier, ready to receive what I will inevitably give up. Heat slips from me and while I’m not heating the entire universe, I am contributing to it, molecule by molecule.

Heat flow becomes contribution, entropy becomes letting go, and cold becomes the cost of existing warmly in a colder world. And maybe that’s all we need to do: make the world a warmer place, step by step.

“I used to think I had to do something extraordinary with my life. Now I just want to be fully alive in it … to see the light change, to love people well, to feel the days as they pass. That feels extraordinary enough” – thetinyjoyproject

String Lights

Anyone who knows me, knows I love string lights. Like, a very real, deep, inexplicable love for string lights. You know how when you’re driving with someone and they see a horse and they go, “Look! A horse!!” that’s me but with string lights: “oh my god, look! String lights!!”

“I still can’t believe we invented string lights. As if the stars weren’t enough, we went ahead and made our homes shine too. Humans really are dreamers at heart. And I love that about us” – thetinyjoyproject

But I also recently saw a quote (that I cannot place and will probably misquote): every day you don’t go outside and look at the sky is a wasted day.

My 2026 Song

I don’t know if I have a word yet, but January and 2026 reminds me of Sapphire by Ed Sheeran.

You’re glowing, you colour and fracture the light. You can’t help but shine…
The lights, your face, your eyes, exploding like fireworks in the sky…

Maybe our 2026 resolutions don’t need to be life changing, or even hard. Maybe they’re simple or even silly: (1) The whole year, I’m going to count the number of times I compliment a stranger; (2) I will eat more blueberries in 2026 than I did in 2025; (3) I will dance every morning before I go to work.

There’s no way to really predict what’s going to happen these next 365 days. But as Day 1 unfolds, I have high hopes that we can all live extraordinarily.

Until next time!

xo

Sandhya

If you would like to celebrate my 30th year around the sun with me, then please click the follow or subscribe button! Feel free to connect with me through this platform, twitter, my coffee and checkins Instagram, my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Amazon Music, or email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com! If you have any suggestions for topics or anything you’d like me to write/speak about, please let me know🙂❤