Themes for the year are so much better than resolutions, see the video above. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and it works well. Essentially, when you come to a potential forking decision you think of your theme and act accordingly.

Last year, my theme was ‘Me’, and this led to me quitting the main job I’d been doing for nearly a decade and going to work elsewhere. And being much happier about it.

But, see my earlier post, this also led to me doing too much work for fear that I wouldn’t have enough.

So my theme for this year is ‘No’. Which is a very hard word for me to say, on a number of levels. My parents always told me that one’s mission in life should be to make others happy, so obviously you never say ‘No’. Also, fear of not having enough money to pay my rent and, above all, my daughters’ horrendous school fees made it very hard to ever say ‘No’ to work.

But events of the past month or so have taught me – well, forced me – to learn how to say it. First a school called up and asked me, begged me actually, to come in and teach 10 hours of English. I could, possibly, have done it by moving things around and working late and seeing my family even less than I do now. Or – and, gentle reader, spoiler alert – I could say ‘No’. Which I did.

Things came to a head this week with a doctor’s visit where my GP, whom I’ve known for getting on for two decades, told me to take 10 days off work or, and I’m not making this up, risk losing my leg. She was exaggerating, at least a bit, but my leg has been very painful over the past three weeks with what she diagnosed as an Erysipelas, a nasty-looking bacterial infection.

I ummed and ached on the way home on Wednesday morning and decided that, well, yes, she had a point. Last Wednesday was coincidentally the first day I’ve had off from work since September, apart from the Christmas holidays. I’m working myself into an early grave, and I have to stop – not stop next year but right now, I decided. I contacted the schools where I work and told them I couldn’t come in, but that I could do classes online. One and a half agreed, the half of one school is being weird and difficult but that will be sorted out, and not at the cost of my health.

So, home schooling for a week and a half, no driving, no walking, lots of lying down or sitting with my leg horizontal. I’m proud of me for saying no and doing it, this is the very first time as a self-employed person that I’ve dared to say “I’m not coming in”.