Of ‘New Year, Who Dis?’ Resolutions and Why Old You is Enough

Please do not make a big deal out of New Year’s resolutions this year. Simply look at the past few years, dating back to Instagram’s world takeover around 2013, and analyse how that has worked out for you, love. All these years one mantra prevailed. All can be well if you only were to wake up at seven AM every day to work out for an hour, eat clean like in those ‘Harper’s Bazaar Celebrity What I eat in a day’ videos, drink tons of water, and meditate to match the physical glow up to a mental one. You see other people do it so much on social media until it becomes a trend, and the alternative leaves you doubting the value of your own life. You, unlike every other perfect human being out there, lack the determinacy to lead such a lifestyle. Of course, it is possible, considering ‘you can achieve what you put your mind to’ and all. The likelihood of possibilities is not really what is at stake here, is it? The real question you need to ask yourself is, is any of this necessary?

Is waking up at 9 am and being woken by the sex noises your flatmates are making in the shower really that bad of an alternative? Overlooking the slight awkwardness at breakfast later on, these type of mornings make for better stories than the ones you dedicated to a Kardashianesque Insta story. Also, in all honesty, taking the stairs up and down countless times in a day because the kitchen is an automated direction upon leaving your room, counts as a workout. There’s a reason the 'Stairmaster' is a celebrity loved workout machine, and it’s close enough to a Kardashian workout, too. Unlike them, however, eating salads in the kitchen while fighting your sisters, or housemates in your case, really is not the healthiest way to digest your food intake. It is proven science that harmoniously eating Chinese takeout in front of the TV with the sinful people around you, is a much more effective metabolism booster. Not sure who claimed so, but I’d bet my UberEats coupons that I am right. And in terms of drinking lots of water, this is one thing you actually get quite right, being the thirsty little hoe that you are.

Moving on to meditation and all things mental health, is a whole different conversation entirely. Partially because mocking it must surely violate some sort of community guidelines, but also because you are so much more in your mind than ever before, aren’t you? If lockdown and social distancing have contributed to one major outcome this past year, then it must surely be the situation you have tried to run away from for ages now: Being forced to deal with your shit.

How curious you shall not have decided to do so long before as a pass-time with no distractions in sight. In this brave new world, however, self-reflection and constant pondering on what life is about, are the new walking to campus and grabbing coffee in the morning. You might have taken these things for granted and even considered them as chores, initially. Joke’s on you because now you are forced to live by yourself and for yourself. When your life is reduced to one household and the solitude of your room, you realise that the happiness in your life comes from other people, mostly. Without Friday evenings with friends, dressing up and having somewhere else to go to, without library study sessions and random encounters with friends in coffee shops, without the mundane and automatic routines of everyday life, what keeps your mind occupied? Where do we go, when all else goes quiet?

By such nature, deafening silence is forced upon you too. The true sane state of your mind will want to make up as much noise as possible. Let it. For it is in these moments that we realise the essential noise we need in life. Your own voice.

I’m sorry, I had to spice this thing up with a little bit of a poetically-flavoured epiphany. And the paragraph break gave it just the pizazz it needed for effect. Now that I have hopefully gotten you to think about your own state of affairs, reflect on your voice. Whenever we hear about ‘let your voice be heard’, the most difficult part is understanding what we have to say is valuable. Other people actually like to hear the stories we live to tell. And so let me tell the story of what every year thus far has been like for you.

You grew up multilingual and never felt belonging to any one culture. Paradoxically, back home you were the foreigner and abroad you became the one from home. You always lack eloquence in either one language because you have other words flying around in your brain fighting for your more immediate attention, instead. Physically speaking, you think balls are the biggest threat to humankind. Not those hanging things on men’s third legs, but the ones thrown about during PE. Although the former is also kind of scary the way it just dangles down there. It comes to no surprise then, your voice and expression through exercise and sexual activity both have one mortifying thing in common–awkwardness.

I am not done yet. The complexity of your habits both of present times and futures past are lengthy. You are definitely a fashion and beauty shopaholic because you think that expressing yourself through such materiality is going to round your rougher edges and compliment whatever beauty you lack. Every now and then, you obsess over buying strictly organic, sugar free, wheat free groceries. And because any amount of self care is never enough if not for a holistic approach, you decide to bully yourself into going to the gym and finally getting rid of your biggest shortcoming.

You weigh too much. You are too short. Unfortunately for you, the latter you cannot control, so you have to try harder with the former. That’s why your money already belongs to skincare and fashion companies as soon as it is in your account. You have got to get yourself better skin. You have got to learn how to deal with curly hair as the only one in your family with such hair. After all, the father who sired your most complimented feature left you to your own devices remorselessly. You see, this is why you have got to draw the attention to yourself with all these mere things and practices. Once you do all of this, you’ll finally be happy, you just wait and see. You will finally attract the attention of those most desiring the aesthetics of the world, men.

You have tried to make yourself happy for some time now. This is where it has gotten you. Into a state of neediness that you yourself cannot fulfil on your own. How else is someone else supposed to fulfil you? Who is going to love you like this? How the fuck are you supposed to love yourself, when the very things you think you need to do for love are the burden upon which self-love does not deem you as worthy? Do you now see the vicious cycle in which you have your own blood on your hands? Slowly, you bleed the love you leave for yourself, as it seeps through the pores of fear, insecurity and lack of self-worth.

As the new year is announced by the strike of midnight, no cosmic forces of the world will change that. So, for once, take this new year as the antithesis of a fresh start. For it is not a fresh start you need, but a choice to live the life you have been given, along with its challenges and delights, fully and unequivocally.

And so let me tell the story of what this year and every year from now on should be like.

All of the above. From the waking up to sex sounds and sinfully eating Chinese in front of the TV to the living at the gym and the water overdose, you thirsty thing you. Whatever you do, do it for the sake of the moment, not for some ulterior motive and long-term goal. Because the truth is that in the long-term only the journey of small momentary memories are of value rather than the result. Live your short, slightly overweight, and frizzy-haired truth guilt-free and unapologetically. There is true beauty within that. Accept the ups and, especially, the downs. Love will follow too. Not to mention, it has always been there, both deep within and to the farthest ends.

Resolutely, I give yourself permission to be human.

Love,

Yourself