New Year, Same Me
First off, Happy New Years!!
Hopefully, by this point, all of your hangovers have dissipated and you’re now begrudgingly back at work and not sending me ski pictures. *cough* you know who you are (insert glare here).
So, with the start of a new year, I’ve been thinking about what that actually means….
For most, I think it gives us a point to start over. A place where we can feel like nothing is tarnished yet and the pages have yet to be written—a blank slate if you will.
[Insert the age old pastime of making resolutions]
Everyone makes resolutions. Gyms are now teeming with new members fulfilling New Years resolutions and subsequently pissing off the people who have been going all year.
Resolutions, by definition, are firm decisions or the action of solving a problem. But that implies that there is a problem. That there’s something to fix. And personally, I’m tired of trying to fix myself when in reality, there is nothing wrong with who I am—even if I don’t always feel that way.
So instead of making resolutions, I’m setting intentions.
You may not think there is a difference. Both words generally have the same connotation for change. However, to me, intentions are aims or goals. They give a little more leeway for stepping off trail but still allowing you to find your way without sending you back home. While resolutions, on the other hand, leave no room for mistakes. If you screw up, well your blank slate is now on fire and turning to ash and you can’t get another one. Sorry…better luck next year!
okay….maybe that’s a bit extreme…
But we as humans are bound to fail. And we should be allowed to fail without putting ourselves through the ringer! Just because we fail doesn’t mean we aren’t making progress. (This is something I constantly have to remind myself.)
I hate failure—who doesn’t? When I fail, there’s one side of me that’s like, “f@ck it, why even try anymore?” and another side that’s tells me to pick myself off the floor and keep going. Failure is hard. No one likes it. But how you react to it is what matters.
Life isn't grade school. You don't get held back if you fail. Whether you fail or not, you have to continue on. The failure isn’t what’s going to hold you back, how you react will. You’re the one that has to decide whether or not to keep aiming toward your goal or go in a different direction.
Okay….so if you are are you still here...Let’s get back on track and continue with this ADD diatribe…
So my other issue with the word “resolution” is I often feel like their main focus is to change us—not that there’s anything wrong with that. But the question remains: “what’s wrong with the old me?” and why do I want to change myself?
I’ve struggled with the question a lot. Ask me when someone hurts me, or when I feel rejected, or reprimanded….I could probably give you a whole damn Christmas list. But when I get out of that state of mind, I don’t necessarily feel like that anymore. And I realize, it’s the actions of other people that have made me ask, “what is wrong with me?”
Not that it’s by any means their fault.
To the contrary, I am the one to blame. The fact is, I care too much about what people think of me. I give everyone the power to affect the way I feel about myself.
One of my all-time favorite quotes—which was also my senior yearbook quote—is,
“Care about what people think and you will always be there prisoner.”
I may have quoted that 12 years ago, but I still have yet to fully live by it.
But I digress….
So the whole point of my stream-of-consciousness tangent is this:
I’m not going to try to change who I am, but I am going to try to change the way I feel. And that doesn’t mean I’m going to succeed—I will definitely fail—but it does mean I will make progress.
Which leads me to my intentions for the year.
1. To stop letting the opinions of others affect the way I feel about myself. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better about this; but, I’m still working on it. I still fail. But that OKAY. I’m making progress. I may not remember the moment someone hurts me, but I remind myself a day or two later, “who gives a f@ck about what you think of me if you don’t know me?” If you don’t like me, so be it.
As Dita Von Teese said:
“You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches.”
2. To let go of expectations that were set, not by other people, but by myself. My life looks nothing like what I thought it would look like 10 years ago. It’s been filled with far more beauty and heartbreak than I could have ever imagined. But I’m slowly accepting that this—right here, right now—is exactly where I am meant to be. If my life had gone the way I thought it would, I wouldn’t have seen all the places I’ve been, and I don’t know if I would feel so deeply. I wouldn’t have experienced so much wonder, and I wouldn’t have learned as much as I have.
But still, every once in a while something triggers those feelings—seeing a friend get engaged, another worry about getting pregnant or becoming pregnant. Those things make me so utterly aware of how far away I am from even thinking about those things. And I feel trapped. I feel like I have watched everyone step forward in the last 10 years, but my feet are cemented in the same place and I’m unable to move. That I’ve somehow been left behind.
But that feeling is something I’ve created. The fact that I don’t have those things—that I don’t own a house or have children—it has given me the freedom to see the world and figure out what I want. And it lets me go where my heart takes me. If I wanted to quit my job and move to New Zealand, I could do it—not accounting for their immigration laws of course. There is nothing that keeps me here. And for me, moving to a new country would be a grand adventure… (Just don’t tell my parents)
This leads into my next intention...
3. To enjoy life more. I choose to say that over “be happier” because I am happy—at least 70% of the time. I enjoy my life, but I do have my moments—often. Sometimes those moments are caused by something someone said or how they treated me. And sometimes, it’s because I get in my head about my life and where I’m at. When this happens, I stop enjoying what’s going on around me. I start living in my head and stop living in the present. And I recognize that when I am in my head I stop living. I stop enjoying the present. And if you aren’t living, you are just wasting time. If that makes any sense at all…
If you’re still here…bravo for keeping up.
4. Lastly—”thank god”—my final intention is to have the courage to take more risks.
“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”
―Benjamin Mee, We Bought a Zoo
I actually read recently that it only takes 5 seconds—5 SECONDS—from when you want to do something, to talk yourself out of it. And trust me, I’m a master at that. For me, it’s not the fear of doing it that holds me back, it’s the fear of what comes next. The unknown. But change is a beautiful thing. One of my favorite feelings in fact. The feeling of butterflies and anticipation. The feeling that something great is about to happen.
More often than not, change is easier said than done, especially changes that completely alter your life like quitting your job. Maybe you tell yourself that you’re not ready. But waiting until your ready is the same as expecting it not to happen. There’s no such thing as “being ready”. There is only the present and even in 5 months, you’re still not going to feel ready. But the question is, if you go for it, would it be worth it? Oftentimes I think it is.
So my intention is to stop waiting for something to change; and instead, go for it. Make it happen. What’s the worst that happens? I fail and get right back up? I stay in the same place I was before? Or maybe, just maybe, something amazing will happen. One of my favorite unknown quotes is:
“If you wait for the perfect moment, the perfect moment will pass you by.”
And isn’t that the damn truth….
Anyways, if you made it to the end of this diatribe, Congratulations! You won absolutely nothing. Hopefully, though, it gave you something to think about for the new year.
Remember…
We are all a work in progress. We are going to fail. We are going to f@ck up. We will never be perfect. But that’s the beauty of being human.
Until the next ADD diatribe…
xo Kait
