Social Conditioning
Maybe it’s the years of social conditioning. We hear and see slogans proclaiming new beginnings, new identities, new everything. A New Year can be a magical opportunity to shed off your skin and past and choose to begin again. However trite they sound, we learn to believe them. Even when we wake up on the 1st of January and feel as if nothing is new – same sun, same bed, same clothes from the night before – our mind rejects the concept.
It’s the time for hopeful resolutions, to prophecy a new self. But you know how it goes: the keeping resolutions part starts strong, then slowly peter down after a few months in. Whatever new there was fades off. Some good habits we tried to keep in resolutions stay. Some of our old selves seep back in.
New Year, New Beginnings?
In 2021, there’s more clamor for a new beginning. We want that reset. After the last twelve months, we all want something better for ourselves – better identities, better experiences. But to tell you the truth, the last thing we need is the pressure of a magical transformation.
2020 wasn’t a bad year out of coincidence. Everything the lockdown revealed has already been there since day 1: subpar services, day-to-day conflicts, scarcity, anxiety. What it did was amplify how dangerous our situations can be. There was nothing left to do but survive.
Amid surviving, we still worked and studied with institutions demanding the same performance level despite unjust and dire circumstances. So you get tired. You burn out. Then you feel guilty for not giving your best; for not maximizing whatever potential there was. Then you live with this exhaustion, shame, and guilt.
And you still wonder why a blanket of dread seems to be shadowing you wherever you go.
New Year Still Has Last Year’s Burnout
We underestimate how much we can take as human beings. There is always the need to push ourselves harder, into great and beautiful things, thinking the more we work, the more we are worth. Ignore your material conditions, your need for rest: you can achieve anything you put your mind to. You’re just not doing enough. You’re never doing enough.
We always do much more than what we think. Despite the days blurring by and us feeling like we’ve been stuck in March the whole year, we’ve also changed. But change never comes the way we expect it to come: life-altering, dramatic, like a meteor straight from the sky. Change happens as you wait in line in the grocery store. It could happen as you sleep, or as you have that conversation with a friend. As you help out someone with a few words.
Be Kind (to yourself.)
This is why most resolutions fail, too. We underestimate the slow, incremental of every day. Do we really expect ourselves to take on a big change the moment the 1st of January comes? If we do, we rarely make it. Small steps, however, gets us to the finish line. Small steps that you probably didn’t even take notice of.
There’s no harm in dreaming big this year. No harm in setting up seemingly unattainable resolutions and proclaiming that you’ll make it.
The danger comes when you want to severely punish yourself or feel worthless when you can’t keep up.
Look back at yourself, at the start of last year. Could you say you were the same? No, you’ve been transformed – you’ve encountered so many experiences, new people, and challenges. You’ve resisted and thrived. We tend to skip over the moments that have changed us.
Facing a new year doesn’t require you to keep up with earth-shattering resolutions. We’re already keeping up with so many tragedies, both on a national and personal level. You don’t have to require yourself to transform no matter what.
A better resolution would be to approach the next 365 days with kindness and patience for yourself.
