Sia Jyoti
Despite it boiling down to a change in numbers, the event of a new year tends to accumulate emotion unlike ever before. I like to think of myself as a realist, unfazed by mere ‘special days’. Yet I too find myself, every year in and every year out, overwhelmed by the New Year blues of January the 1st.
During day-to-day life, Mondays take shape as benchmarks of productivity. What you failed to achieve on the weekend and what will taunt you for the coming week are all things you tackle — on a Monday. Yet every so often, that occasional late Sunday night will lead to a missed 9 a.m. or a failed gym attendance. When this happens, you’ll maybe groan, whine a little to your housemates or to your parents on the phone to paint the illusion of how much you ‘really care’. Self discipline and criticism is tough in these instances and we find ourselves trusting the unknowns of Tuesday, Wednesday – maybe even Thursday. What is it then about the relentless agony of achieving something — anything, on the first day of the year? Spanning from the taking on of a Tolstoy novel to the sole establishment of a year-long goal, why are we so desperate for change?
In the coming of a new year, romanticisation is flipped on its back and every event from the former year takes shape as possibly the worst judgement of your life. That late assignment? A sign that you’ll never really be competent enough. That average first date? Your one chance at love that you blew with your fear of commitment. The things we nostalgically reflect on the night before suddenly take shape as all that we avoided. At a younger age when one’s emotional intelligence hasn’t quite developed, I would owe it all this regret to athe mixture of alcohol, fireworks, and New Year’s Eve kisses. In retrospect, I find the blues to be deeper than a result of sensory overload and immaturity.
On the first day of a new year, the human love for patterns, continuity and comfort clashes with an intrusive urge to change. The daunting prospect of localising in on the areas of mediocrity which require improvement manifest into our beloved resolutions. Eating better, exercising more, and always, without an actual plan, magically ‘stressing less’. The majority of resolutions we publicly announce will fail due to the external validation of your friends’ proud reactions. The others may partially succeed, but only until March when the normality of 2022 also settles in. What then? How does one navigate the pressure of a new year?
I find the problem is inherent within my choice of the word navigate. Why all of a sudden do I find myself lost in my own life? About decisions I have consciously made and patterns I so carefully built? The word resolution can be defined as a pledge or a commitment. It can also be referred to as “the conversion of something abstract into another form” (Oxford Dictionary). For example, the resolution of an image that may have been pixelated earlier. Whilst one meaning almost begs a certain stubbornness, the latter suggests clarity. Perhaps in our struggle for change we dismissed our need for closure. Both metaphorically, of the emotions we thought to have processed in one drunken night, and of the events that don’t seem as far away as you would like them to.
In my attempt to avoid the let down of failed resolutions, I will start my Mondays now with reflection. Instead of investing in an overcomplicated bullet journal, maybe I’ll try and invest in myself. Two years now we’ve lived in a pandemic where change occupied a constant state. The beginning of 2022 most certainly does not require a continuation of that stress. To allow myself to grow in a way and “make better judgments” required by resolution, I first must sign up to do some reflection. I know you’ve been told that it is all in the past — that your unsolved anger and miscommunication can be left in the former year. Regardless, it doesn’t take a genius to know that if flared pants could make it back into society, your saviour complex most certainly will. For now, I’ll pledge to write in my journal. That way, I’ll attempt a resolution designed for resolving.
