A happy old year? Instead of chasing a bucket list, flip it

It's that time of the year when many people make resolutions and Fomo checklists. Look back thankfully too to be happy.

- Denise Chong

Anything fresh at first (from a cleaning or exercise regimen to a political or romantic new hope) may lose some of its shine.

Likewise, for some, shaking off the year that's flown by and hanging all our hopes on the one ahead can lead to some disappointment.

So how about making a reverse bucket list? Looking back at our wins - big and small - can be a better way to end the year.

Instead of going full Fomo by fretting over what we have missed out on and only getting anxious all over again to do it in the new year, gratefully recall the things we have done in the past 12 months that have already made us feel happy.

It can even be a list drawn from all the years of our lives, which means our cup runneth over with more good things as time passes.

You can be grateful for tiny things or smaller starts instead of massive achievements like, say, summiting a mountain.

Reaching a mountain base camp is good enough.

Travelling to a city where the mountain can be viewed from afar is good enough. (Hey, saving the first $50 for a trip makes it to the reverse bucket list.)

Even climbing several flights of stairs in 2024 is good enough.

If you collect each tiny twinkling light of happiness in the year or years past, you will get a chain of good memories like a string of fairy lights glowing in your life.

The darkness - from a chronic backache to retrenchment risk to endless wars - is of course always there.