Optimism and New Year's Resolutions
22:17
So 2016 – which is about as old as I feel after receiving slippers and a fondue kit as Christmas gifts, and being very happy about them – happened. This is something that we all have to accept, and we can console ourselves with the near certainty that it will lead to a significant reduction in the number of people we hear referencing Back to the Future 2, which isn't even nearly as good as its prequel and we all know it. Having had almost a full week of human contact since the new year at the time of writing this post, I can safely say that we all feel the same way at the beginning of 2016, and it is: fat. This is normal. The sedentary lifestyle and copious amounts of food that come with Christmas invariably lead to weight gain. In reality, I still look pretty much the same as I did in November 2015, just with a slightly larger circumference on certain parts of my body, but I feel like a blimp with a fringe and, ultimately, how you feel is more important than how you look.
This blimpiness combined with a constant nagging awareness of a family history of heart disease has led to me drawing up a New Healthy Lifestyle for myself. It's pretty much the same as my old unhealthy lifestyle, but now instead of mashed potato I have mashed celeriac and I pay a monthly fee to use a gym because I would rather fall further into debt than go running. I'm about three days in and it's going splendidly, I must say. Some people might argue that more substantial changes are necessary for me to deem this a 'lifestyle', but I will respond to those people by waving my vegetable ricer menacingly at them and quoting the "Bacon is good for me!" kid.
And that's fine. Excuses are fine. If you want to use the new year as an excuse to do things that you've been meaning to do for ages, something that you think will bring you a slightly better quality of life, then you go ahead and do that. I hope you achieve your goals, or find ones that are better suited to you if you don't. It's not like this mindset causes people to give up for the rest of the year. Have you ever heard anyone say, "Well, I've not been putting as much effort into my art as I meant to and my doctor's said I need to watch my blood pressure, but it's August and I have to wait until the new year to do anything about those things"? Me neither. No one does. What I have heard is people who fancy themselves as intellectuals smugly telling people who make new years resolutions that they're doomed to failure because people can't really change and you're still the same shitty old you that you were a week ago in 2015. These people don't tend to make any effort to better themselves because they already think they're better than everybody else. If you are one of these people, you should make a new year's resolution to be less intentionally negative because, quite frankly, you are draining and nowhere near as interesting as you think you are.
So, if I don't make new year's resolutions, why do I defend those who do so fervently? The answer lies in optimism. I enjoy a good "for fuck's sake I hate my life why can't everyone just leave me alone" rant as much as the next person every so often, but, generally speaking, the little voice in the back of my head is saying that everything will turn out fine in the end. When I set a goal for myself, I genuinely believe that I'm going to achieve it. It might be on a longer time-scale than originally planned, but it's going to happen. And if it doesn't then it's just not important enough for me to actually care about and I move on to a different goal. I've done my time as a down-in-the-dumps pessimist and I'm a lot more productive and motivated now I've converted to optimism. I don't want to shit all over someone's goals, even if they're not ones I necessarily share. Let people figure out for themselves if what they're aiming for is realistic or right for them. If doing things in January is right for them, then great. If it's not, they'll find a better way of doing things soon enough.
A few years ago I found myself delegating more and more of my obligations to Future Rowena. Essentially, Future Rowena is a much better version of myself who is half aspirational figure and half put-upon scapegoat. I simultaneously pin all of my hopes and dreams onto her and treat her as a servant. When I don't want to do something because it's menial or tedious or I just fancy sitting on the sofa eating Jaffa cakes and watching How to Get Away with Murder right now I say, "Oh, Future Rowena can deal with that. Future Rowena will be better equipped to do this task than I am." Future Rowena, you see, is an exceptionally talented and capable woman. The things that Future Rowena is better at than me range from the most minor ("Future Rowena will have had a good night's sleep and therefore she can wash her hair in the morning") to long-term Serious Grown-up Things ("Future Rowena will have paid off her overdraft so I can leave saving up for a house deposit to her").
Of course, this would all be fine if Future Rowena existed in reality beyond what she actually is: a rhetorical device used to justify whatever bad decision I am about to make. What I mean when I say, "Future Rowena will do that better than I can," is essentially, "I feel like being a lazy shit right now." It was also a way of poking fun at the fact that I was incapable of change; the implication was that Future Rowena would actually be equally as shit and useless as Current Rowena. Everyone laughs at my inability to grow as a person and we move on.
The thing is, I recently realised that I have, in fact, become Future Rowena. Not just in the sense that I've aged but that I am actually a better person than I used to be – or, at least, a better functioning person. Future Rowena, by which I confusingly now mean Past Rowena, managed to do a lot of the tasks that were left to her. A few months ago I said, "Future Rowena will be more responsible with money." These days, Current Rowena has a budgeting spreadsheet. When I was at university the task of dealing with career-related stuff was left to Future Rowena. Now Current Rowena has a job that she loves. For years I've been saying, "Future Rowena will take better care of herself." Current Rowena goes to the gym and keeps an eye on the vitamin content of her food.
People are impatient by nature. It's easy to feel like we're not making any progress when it's too gradual to see happening in front of your eyes. I don't feel any different to how I did a few years ago day-to-day, but when I look back on my university and graduate life I see that there are so many things that I've learned to do that make my life run much more smoothly. Cutting off relationships that no longer bring anything positive to the table, renting and running a house without the help of a parent or university, living alone in a foreign country, learning how to do a fishtail braid… These are all things that I was unable to do when I was eighteen, and now I don't even think about them. So I have faith in the New Healthy Lifestyle. It might take me a little longer to be at the point where healthy living habits don't feel like a tedious, joyless Hell – it might even take as long as four years – but it'll happen. Future Rowena will get there.
Of course, Future Rowena is also going finish writing that novel I've been working on for the best part of a year but somehow not making any real progress on. But, for now, The Sims calls. And Jaffa Cakes. No one said the New Healthy Lifestyle couldn't involve Jaffa Cakes.
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