My New Year Never Lasts Very Long
Reading time: 4.5 minutes
You know what time of year it is when ‘it’ goes down on social media. Year-long recaps on stories, long emotional captions with photos and those strange videos that Facebook make of your year based on what you’ve posted. Hm.
The winds of the #humblebrag are blowing all over as people talk about how much they’ve achieved and overcome this year. It’s funny how one day can change everything…
In some respects, New Year’s Eve is so basic. It contains the same 24 hours as all the other days and yet every hour, minute and second of this one is meaningful. It’s reflective, emotional, exciting, celebratory or maybe even anxiety building if you don’t have plans yet. These 24 hours have a lot of us doing the absolute most. And no shade here friend, I’m right in the middle of all that too, I love the excitement and celebrations that New Year’s brings.
But I did wonder why this year. Why do we all make such a big or at least average-sized deal of it? Extortionately priced nights out, new outfits, new resolutions, goal setting, new gym memberships, short-lived diets and roughly a 1-2-week slump in the demand for cigarettes. Genuine big up to those of you trying to quit though!
I think it’s because a new year brings hope. There’s hope that with this fresh start we can change our lives for the better. Around New Years it hangs heavy in the air, so we can’t help but breathe it in deeply and run to do whatever represents that good change. That’s definitely how I see and use the new year after the joy of knowing time is moving and yet I’m still alive to put it bluntly.
So, it’s after midnight and we’re into the new year. Woohoo we made it, high fives all round bro. But at what point do I lose that brand-new new year hope, where it doesn’t feel all that fresh anymore and I’d need a new one to be excited again.
My first mess of up the year is what usually throws my hope out of the window. What can I say? At times, I’m a fickle girl *shrugs shoulders*. I don’t do something I said I would, or more likely I do something that I said I wouldn’t and cue the little mental voice telling me that this year is the same as the last and nothing has really changed.
Tufiakwa! *clicks over head* (which means God forbid)
Two years ago, within the first week of 2018, after all my NYE celebrations, good vibes and neatly written down goals, I messed up.
What made it worse is that deep down I wanted to do it. What made it double worse is that oh boy were there consequences. Best believe I got a severe mental and emotional spanking for that.
Cue the mental voice:
‘You are exactly who you were a week ago in 2017, so drop the act. You’ll never really be able to change’.
Well.
If in this first week of 2020, you’ve already broken a resolution, then yes, you’ve flopped. But that doesn’t mean you’re incapable of change. It just means that you didn’t on this occasion. However, like at school, life has a great way of offering up resit opportunities where we’ve failed, so let’s take them.
It’s easy for me to mentally throw the year away when I get fed up or frustrated with it, but time is not a toy. It doesn’t make sense to just chuck my plans and dreams away because the year doesn’t seem like it’s ‘working’ for me anymore.
I want to grow that marathon attitude to life and stick with it when I’m tired and frankly just over it. This requires hope and a bit of focus. Not the kind that turns you into an organisational psycho that becomes hyper-obsessive about their goals and plans every second of their day. That is not for me. All work and no play makes Toni a dull girl.
So, the final question to ask is how do I or possibly we keep hope alive to keep us going past January and throughout the entire year?
The answer is: I don’t entirely know.
I don’t think there’s one generic answer, I think it depends on you. There might not even be one thing, you could have many sources of hope. I think it’s worth taking time to figure that out. One thing that gives me hope at times is trusting that God has good plans for me (Jeremiah 29:11).
So, this is where we can go our separate ways friends (until next week).
Have a happy new year guys, one that last way past January.
P.S speaking of marathons, Paula Radcliffe literally peed and pooed herself during the London 2005 Marathon, on camera. If anyone had an excuse to throw their year away best believe it was her. But she didn’t. Clearly, she found the source of her hope.
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