The New Year is finally here! 2017 - Brought in with pomp and show, glitter and gold, and yes, the festivities! As the sun rose today, in many a heart, the excitement slowly ebbed off. This is a yearly phenomenon for most of us however. As the day draws near, we go into making all these plans and preparations, as the day finally approaches we reach a crescendo and then again homeostasis is obtained. It’s the same with birthdays, anniversaries and all other events of the year. Those events are just a day however, when we prepare for the New Year, it is the entire year we are preparing for. Or are we?
Every year as the end approaches, many of us go into a reflection of the year gone by. We mentally calculate all the hits and misses, all the great times and not so great times and of course we go into self-critical mode. This moment when we decide that we have a list of faults that need to be righted and we use the world’s best excuse to try and atone. Yes, the end of the year gives us an opportunity to find within us a fault and come up with a ‘resolution’ to change. But alas, resolutions like rules were also meant to be broken and thus the cycle continues. Year after year and resolution after resolution we walk the same paths and make the same mistakes.
As we approach a new beginning, excitement is at its highest. There is this feeling that we are indestructible and everything will go our way. As the feeling gets stronger, our expectations of ourselves become larger. We overestimate our ability and power and we are completely gung-ho to achieve it all. This phase is wonderful as we feel completely untouchable, over the moon if you please. And why not? It feels great to be able to achieve it all. As the dawn of the new beginning finally approaches however, reality is what we eventually have to wake up to. Reality is simple, life goes on and all that matters is constant and consistent change. As we break our first resolution and eventually the next few, we are again left with a sense of failure which ultimately extinguishes all the excitement we started off with.
Before sitting down to write this, a conversation with a very close friend brought pearls of wisdom forward. Probably wiser for the fact that every year as we ring in the New Year, she also celebrates her birthday, or just because she is simply a much more grounded individual, this one conversation actually started changing my perspective on the issue. Yes sure, we need to make goals achievable. That is always the mantra we should live by, but great things have happened with a thought. So why do most of us find it difficult to achieve our goals? Lack of faith in our own abilities is one answer. What changed my perspective was a very simple fact my friend and all her wisdom shared with me completely nonchalantly, like she didn’t even really reflect on it and it was merely a fact. She said, we prepare for the New Year and get upset with ourselves if we do not achieve a certain goal. But as the year progresses, we inevitably make some great choices, achieve some great feats, wander into territories we hadn’t planned on but which actually changed our lives for the better. It’s the stuff we do not intend to do that make our lives all the better. So yeah, so what if we break a few resolutions each year? They were meant to be broken anyways. So what if we didn’t achieve all we had planned at the beginning of 2016? We are exactly where we are supposed to be. So what if there are people we started 2016 with, that aren’t around us anymore? We are with exactly who you are supposed to be with.
The New Year is not just the first of January, it is the entire 365 days journey that we are embarking on. Let us make a simple resolution this year. To accept what the year brings, to take it on with a smile and to be thankful for every new day, for there will be trials, there will be tribulations, but there are all part of the parcel neatly interwoven with joys and happiness. Thank you to all those who have made my year perfect. Contentment is satisfaction, so ‘Adios… to the new me.’
- Charlene Farrell is a counselling psychologist who works extensively with children and adolescents. She also counsels and works with individuals of all ages. Emotional well-being, to her, is of utmost importance to a fruitful existence
