Happy New Year!
Well it’s a new year, so that of course means a new me. Bahahaha, I can’t even type that without giggling because as a classic narcissist there really isn’t anything I would change.
Yep, I know that’s a big call and I’m willing to make it. But lets face facts folks, 99% of you made New Year resolution’s and less than a week into 2015 you have broken them already, or at least some. The optimist in me likes to think you have broken them all already, because let’s face it; New Years resolution’s are made to be broken. They are things we want to be or achieve EVERY day but use this arbitrary line in the sand as a starting point because it’s well the start of a new year.
But what does that mean really? It means that one second ago we were in last year, the next a new year and you still have the same ambitions and dreams but no real compulsion to actually change. Do we really think that that extra second ticking over on the clock that is life has changed us to a point where we really are ready and committed to making the changes?
I think if you REALLY wanted to make those changes and were committed to really making them, you would have gotten you ass in gear and changed already. That extra second, perfectly timed to think about them and become totally committed? Horseshit! That is a fool’s paradise.
Now don’t get me wrong there ARE certain goals that can only be made for a specific year, say get married, have a baby, apply for that new job that has a deadline in the new year. These things are automatically crossed off the new years resolutions list in my mind, because lets face it you were ALREADY resolved to them in 2014, they are just going to occur in 2015. So let’s just chalk them up to plans you have for 2015 and not resolutions.
I’m talking the giving up smoking, losing weight, getting motivated type resolutions. Oh the irony of getting motivation as a new years resolution. You realise you have just given yourself 364 more days to “try to try” and get motivated bonus a day if it’s a leap year.
To me that sounds more like procrastination, not a resolution and trust me I know procrastination when I see it. Actually I personally think that ALL new years resolutions are a result of procrastination, because you really could have decided to make any of these choices or changes the second before 2015 hit, you just chose not too. So that magical unicorn of an extra second ticking over on the clock? The inspiration that came with ringing in 2015 and likely the alcohol involved, will fade just as the shine of a brand new year wears off, the hangover kicks in and we realise that the only thing that has changed is we now date everything as 2015 (well we will struggle with that until about June and then we will be saying “where did the year go”) from the old and tired 2014.
Some people may call me cynical and I’ll happily own that, but I’m also a realist. I know that in that one magical second tick over NOTHING changed in the person to motivate lasting change. This is why NY resolutions are pretty much always bound to fail. You haven’t changed at all, you haven’t suddenly become motivated and life morphed magically into 2015 from 2014 and all the baggage, excuses and crap we use to undermine…. Errr validate…. our reasons not to change, remain the same. There needs to be some lightning bolt moment, a crash to our lowest low or some other factor that will motivate real change that we actually stick to. Not just the second hand ticking over of a clock….. That’s when real change and motivation comes about.
So dear reader I cheers to the moments in 2015 when you will hit rock bottom, your life comes crashing down or you reach your limits AND then you have the motivation for change.
It seems sort of morbid, yes I know and I’m sorry that the truth doesn’t change, just to be palatable. The above moments, these are the moments in life that define us and change us, for the worse or the better it is up to us. We either learn from them, choose to change, wallow in them (to be far a wallowing grace period is allowed but no more than 2 -5 days, unless it truly is something tragic like a death) or do nothing, which is a choice in itself.
So here is to the lows, the rock bottoms and the total fallout’s of 2015 that will change some of us, to the pain they bring, the experience, the insight and ultimately a resolution you actually will stick to.
I don’t wish hard times on anyone, but we all have them and as the cliché it sounds it’s always darkest before the dawn. One of truest thing I have found in life. That and FB and PayPal really are cunts!
For those of you who still have stuck to those resolutions, well good on you, but I give it 2 months max before that motivation wans and old patterns and habits kick back in…. But hopefully you will find your rock bottom, the motivation to claw your way out and make those changes stick.
So here is to the failures, disappointment’s and hard times in 2015. May we learn, grow and change from them, not just clinging to the hope of a ticking over of a second hand on a clock.
Happy New Year!