Happy Belated New Year...

I’m a little late with the New Year’s post I promised myself I’d write, but that’s ok; I’m not going to beat myself up about that, because that is my one resolution this year. To stop beating myself up about things.

I remember past New Years when I would write a nice neat list of resolutions and head into the New Year clutching it, all shiny faced and hopeful about becoming a newer, nicer, more successful version of myself. And then invariably, usually within a week, I’d be crumpling up the list, scrapping it completely, promising myself that I really would do better next year.

Often, I find that I live in a monochromatic world. Either something is black, or it is white. I love it or I loathe it. I am totally passionate and invested, or I am limply disinterested.

Part of that monochromatic lifestyle is thinking that if you fail at something, you’ve failed completely, once and for all, and forever. Which is why I think a resolution is like a grenade in the wrong hands, just waiting to blow you into a billion flaming pieces. Once I’ve broken a resolution – or any kind of rule, really – I feel that there’s no starting over. It seems to me that it would be like making allowances I didn’t deserve – which really defies the whole purpose of setting the rules in the first place. The point is to abide by them, yes? The point is to succeed.

I’m happy to say that I seem to have come out of the last year a little older and a little wiser. (Well, maybe I’m not so happy about the ‘older’ part…). I still don’t find it easy to live outside my grid of extremes – things I absolutely can do and things I absolutely mustn’t do – and I still feel dreadful if I feel that I’ve failed at something or taken the easy way out. The difference is that I’m beginning to be able to accept that ‘success’ isn’t about setting a rule and sticking to it. Partly, yes, success is about achieving our goals. But it’s also – perhaps more importantly – about learning to take the knocks, acknowledge the stumbles, and move on from them. And learn from them. Not just stop trying, throw our hands up in the air and say, Oh well, there’s always next year. Every day is a clean slate. Every morning. Every minute.

This year I’m going to keep getting back up no matter how many times I fall, no matter how skinned my knees get or how bruised my outflung hands.

And that is my wish for all of you.

Here’s to a wonderful 2013

xxx