An article published by the Guardian and The Irish Times this week promised me enlightenment: “Over 50 ways you can make your life easier in 2026.” Advice meandered from the personally inapplicable (I have neither children nor a garden) to the harmlessly obvious (no, you don’t need to fold all of your laundry).

But – as is always the case with the quick-fix-salvage-your-disaster-of-a-life listicles – it left me feeling exhausted.

This year I must, in no particular order, address “the underlying causes of foot pain”; let go of my ageist beliefs; learn how to dress monochromatically; “grow” (ew) my “own gut flora” (ew ew ew); stop “over accessorising” the flat surfaces of my apartment, and stop worrying about what everyone else around me is doing or achieving. Here I was, naively thinking this list was about to make my life easier.

Rather, it all sounds like a lot of work.

January is peak time for this always-fashionable delusion to emerge – that we can tweak and tinker our ways to a better existence. But, now that I am 30 and I have no more life-learning left to do, I am confident in the following assessment: I have never met anyone so stuck in........

© The Irish Times