Here's what we’ve learned about living your best life in 2018, using lessons from some of our most-read Styles stories of 2017.
We encourage you to be a better prepared, less anxious and more showered person in the new year.
1. Make your bed
This will give you a sense of pride and accomplishment, which, the thinking goes, will lead to other similarly virtuous deeds.
2. Wear weather-appropriate shoes
Melania Trump was reminded of this best practice when she spurred the internet’s ire by departing for hurricane-ravaged Houston in stilettos. It’s never a bad idea to put your best foot forward, literally and figuratively.
3. Wash your hair
You know how there are always stories telling you you’re shampooing your hair too much? Well, as with everything, a backlash is brewing.
Dermatologists and hairstylists blame the blow-out bar phenomenon, saying dry shampoo will buy you an extra day or two, but nothing more. Remember your scalp is skin and needs regular washing.
4. Schedule sex
As the Sweet Spot co-columnist Cheryl Strayed advised a reader who felt deprived: “I know this sounds incredibly unsexy, but I’m a fan of appointment sex.
It doesn’t rely upon magic to make it happen. It’s on your to-do list. Like so many worthwhile things in my life - writing, exercising - I’m not always in the mood to have sex, but afterwards I’m always glad I did.”
5. Accept the things you cannot control
We reported on the wedding of 98-year-old Gertrude Mokotoff and 94-year-old Alvin Mann, who, like so many couples before them, met at the gym.
The groom shared this advice on living a long life: “Of course, one part of it is medical science, but the bigger part is that we live worry-free lives; we do not let anything we cannot control bother us in the least.”
6. And if you still feel stressed, distract yourself with a real-life fairy tale
If you are in dire need of some fun and frivolity, just look across the pond. In 2018, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will bless the world with a thoroughly modern royal union.
7. Embrace your age
Let your hair go grey and leave those wrinkles alone. It may just be the start of a revolution. If we want to ensure a less ageist culture, then the battle begins in the mirror, wrote Ashton Applewhite.
“For movements to have power, their members have to embrace the thing that is stigmatised, whether it’s being black, loving someone of the same sex, or growing old.”
8. Pack condoms
Because you never know when the world might end.
“Survivalists absolutely adore condoms,” wrote Alex Williams.
They’re light, compact and
can be used as a canteen, fire starter, elastic band, or signalling device.
9. If you suffer a setback, just keep going – and going out
Make like Hillary Clinton after her election defeat, when she popped up at a Broadway play,
an Italian restaurant and a hotel cabaret.