There are two essential phrases that can be attributed to Kim Cattrall—not Samantha Jones, she’s got loads, but Cattrall herself. One of them is: “Yama kippi yay bo / Sedda rayfa kayba / In dog Latin he quoth / You jay safa sou-RAY!” And the other, more well-known perhaps, is what she said in a 2019 interview with the Guardian: “I don’t want to be in a situation for even an hour where I’m not enjoying myself.”
The latter still regularly does the rounds online, often shortened to “I don’t want to be in a situation for even an hour” (which, fair: who wants to be in a situation?). But the more I look at the quote, and the older I get, the more something dawns on me, which is this: she’s right. She’s been right all along. Why am I saying yes to things, when really I want to say no? And why have I so often persisted with activities when they’re not fun or even satisfying? “I want to choose who I spend time with personally and professionally. It’s my life,” Cattrall went on to say. “There’s only so much time left.”
I could have done with this advice earlier on. If I’d listened, maybe I wouldn’t have stayed at that guy’s house with the skate ramps instead of kitchen counters. Or maybe I wouldn’t have spent those five hours at a pub earlier this year with a group of casual acquaintances at best. I probably wouldn’t have spent all that money on mid-tier nights out when I could have been at home, watching Housewives—and vice versa. If I close my eyes, I can see a funhouse mirror of various scenarios in which I could have left earlier, or never gone at all.
But look, regrets aren’t always useful. And in the new year, I’m going to be following in the steps of Cattrall and only doing things that bring me joy. This doesn’t mean non-stop hedonism—I have a full-time job and don’t intend on giving myself gout—but rather, just knowing my limits and preferences and paying closer attention to them. This might look like not saying yes to a group trip that I can neither afford nor am intrigued by. Or it might mean ordering a pancake stack from a diner 10 p.m. and then eating it in bed with my old friend, TikTok. The point is that so often we’re led by obligation or expectation, when really we should be led by our own whims and predilections. Or, to paraphrase Cattrall: Yolo.
Obviously, there are situations in which you—shock, horror—might not be able to enjoy yourself for an entire hour. Cleaning the fridge, for example, is the kind of household chore that is so boring it actually makes me angry. But it has to be done. Same for going to the gym (fun when you get muscles, not so fun when you’re huffing away on a treadmill like some sort of pneumonic hamster). And, though I love and adore my job, sometimes I’d rather be drinking exactly one Picante on a sandy beach in France. There are sacrifices that have to be made in this life that lead to a sort of ebbing and flowing that’s integral to the proper running of things, like a stream. And nonstop joy would, surely, destroy your dopamine receptors.
But there’s a happy medium to be found, and in the new year, I intend on finding it. As a recovering people-pleaser, I’m used to defaulting to agreeing to something just to keep the peace. Or doing things because I think I should be doing them, rather than because I want to. Or pushing through with friendships that aren’t really working anymore, and maybe never did.
But that’s the old me. The me that wasn’t like Kim Cattrall. Because in 2025, the rumors are true: I don’t want to be in a situation for even an hour where I’m not enjoying myself.