Lifestyle

New Year = new start? Think again

Hey, guess what! 2012 has been and gone without a sniff of apocalypse and 2013 has been thrown unexpectedly upon us all. Now friends, it is time to put the proverbial from the past year to bed and look forward to the year ahead.

If you’re like me, the thought of a fresh start is as enticing as your most guilty pleasure covered in chocolate mousse with a side of cherry on top and maybe you will be close to how I am feeling. The media have jumped on the bandwagon as well – Gok Wan and Activia, holiday adverts, brand-new television programmes, YOU NAME IT. 2013 is fresher than fresh and man, we all know about it.

Now, despite my graphic euphoria regarding leaving certain events of 2012 behind, I have one little niggle of dissatisfaction about the turn of the New Year.

Quite recently, I was at the gym. I can usually go to the gym mid-afternoon on a weekday and breeze from machine to machine without so much as locking eyes with another sweaty individual. But on this occasion, I found myself queuing rather awkwardly for a machine.

The gym was packed. Every second person I saw looked like technicolor Lycra eurotrash: headbands, pedal pushers, THE LOT. The demure ladies in that infamous Eric Prydz video had nothing on this outrageous bunch. It was obvious – every new person I saw stood in that gym had a particular New Year’s resolution.

I have to ask: WHY do people use the New Year as an excuse to sort out problems that need solving imminently? Resolutions are famed for honeymoon periods and nine times out of ten, are broken within two weeks of 1st January.

If the problem cannot be solved this moment, why? Why is it allegedly easier to wait maybe weeks or even months?

Don’t use the glittery cliche of the New Year to turn your life around. If you need to sort a problem: sort it now. As a lovely friend of mine pointed out, “TODAY is only ever with us once in our lifetimes and TOMORROW, NEXT WEEK and NEXT YEAR are always waiting in some home of sidetracks and procrastination”. Life is short.

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