Happy 2015! Who doesn't love the opportunity/excuse to erase the slate and start afresh? The start of a new year – full of shiny promises – provides the perfect push for this, whether it is a career change, a health and fitness overhaul, fulfilling a dream, working on relationships, or simply pledging to become a better version of yourself.
And that is where we trip ourselves up; we expect to suddenly be able to work miracles with our lives, and ourselves, after we have not managed to achieve our objectives in all our years to date.
I like to think I am a generally positive person, and I believe that a positive attitude and being proactive will get you further, but it has to also have a good measure of realism included in it. Real, ordinary lives with jobs and families do not allow the luxury of unlimited time and resources to go out and work flat out on just chasing your dreams, and yet, we are constantly told that if we would only work harder on our goals, they would be ours for certain.
All my life I wanted to be a famous singer – to secure a record deal and be performing on stage. I did everything in my power to obtain this from writing letters to record companies when I was just six years old, to writing my own songs, working as a student to raise the money to record them, and sending them out constantly. As you have gathered, I am not a famous recording artist, and it is not for a lack of trying, an absence of positive thinking, or not enough self-belief. It is just the way it is.
So when I read books, articles or Facebook posts telling me that if I haven't achieved my dreams it is because I haven't visualised hard enough; haven't put enough positive energy into the universe, or have not sent my goals the right amount of good thoughts etc, it actually makes me a little cross. I know that my failure to get to where I want to be is not because I am a bad person, going wrong somewhere, but there are many far more impressionable and sensitive folk who do actually believe their failures are their own fault. Are we to then surmise that the parent who cannot feed their children, or has been out of work for a year is in this position because of their lack of positivity? And that if only they really, really wanted it, they could totally change their life around, just by wishing it so? Positive thinking is great stuff, but the religion of it and its zealots can be dangerous stuff.
There is also this belief that if you haven't achieved the biggest, most grand of things, then you are failing and your life is worthless. The big successes have shifted to being on reality TV for five minutes for being an attention-seeking, freak, and breaking a world record for having the longest tongue, rather than the things that actually keep the world together. Ordinary people who quietly contribute to society through a job that benefits people remain unsung heroes; parents working hard to raise the next generation don't even make the short-list of what constitutes a success. And as for being kind and generous, this is sneered upon in the money-hungry times we live in.
If you make only one resolution to yourself this year, please pledge to be kinder to yourself and recognise the smaller things you have achieved. And whilst it is always good to constantly and quietly work at being the best version of yourself… you CAN do it at your own pace, and without the need for fireworks, or earth shifting changes.
First appeared in The Cyprus Weekly, 01/01/14
