In the wake of the New Year, there is a lot of focus on how we are bettering ourselves. We make resolutions to do more of some things, less of other things - we create standards for what is “acceptable” in our Selves.
The reason New Years Resolutions don’t last past February is we can feel controlled by our resolutions, that we have lost choice in the matter, even if the resolution is meaningful. The problem with New Years Resolutions is they are contrived from a place of depravity.
New Years Resolutions are contrived in that we are, with our ego, saying what is and isn’t acceptable (based on social expectations of acceptability) and, with our ego, peddling the solution (to change who and how we are). So let’s break that down.
The social expectations of acceptability we can see as a binary between what social rules of “good” and “bad”. Morning person? Good. Night owl? Bad. Let me be clear that if your NATURAL inclination happens to coincide with the social morals of goodness, it doesn’t mean you are a purveyor of the system. It is the meaning we derive from these standards that is detrimental, not the standards themselves. Being a morning person doesn’t make you a good person nor does being a night owl make you a bad person, but the meanings we derive from these standards keep us out of relationship from our Selves and others. When someone says they slept in until 1 PM, we have all sorts of assumptions about their character and who they are without knowing anything about their actual character. We are always trying to be “more good and less bad” to be more acceptable to others (this is what happens when we decontextualize our naturally hedonistic ways from ritual - they take over our whole lives).
Read more about the binaries of goodness and badness here:
CW - the next paragraph discusses disordered eating, diet culture and exercise obsession -
Resolutions are contrived because we are establishing a formulaic answer to a very complex problem (and we are seeing our Selves as a problem - but I’ll get to that in a minute). We make a resolution like “go to the gym more” or “get in shape” without addressing WHY we would desire that resolution. Why would you go to the gym more? Why would you “get in shape”? Whose shape are you getting into anyway? What value does going to the gym have for you? Why do you desire the gym or the shape? We cannot take our desires at face value (coming from someone who LOVES desire) because our desires are too intertwined with systems of oppression. Our desires can be tainted with the influence of systemic standards (thinness & heteronormative attractiveness to gain social acceptability in a patriarchal system that values disappearance) so first personalize the desire. What value does going to the gym hold for you? If exercise is beneficial to your mental health, what does exercise look like? Is it only exercise or is it movement in general? If you feel powerful at the gym, that’s fantastic! Do you! How will you know when the desire is authentic to you and when you’re doing what you “SHOULD” do because that’s what you’re supposed to do?
End CW - read on safely
When I say that resolutions are contrived I mean that we are missing our complexity as a human. It isn’t just “get up earlier” and we’ll magically get up earlier. It doesn’t take into account when YOUR brain releases melatonin or how your creativity blossoms in the wee hours of the morning or the blessed stillness when everyone else is in bed. It doesn’t take into account the decades of exhaustion from having to get up for school before your circadian rhythm had completed itself or the fears you had going to school, how unsafe you felt in the hallways. Just telling yourself to “get up early” erases all of the complexities that make you, you. You are not a machine where an algorithm can adjust your settings. You are complex and nuanced and there are many reasons you are the way you are.
Resolutions are contrived because they are giving an easy answer for a complex question. Dissatisfied with your life? Get up earlier! The problem with this is it individualizes often collective issues. The dissatisfaction with your life likely has far more to do with living under systems of oppression you do not consent to than when your alarm rings in the morning. There is no moralism attached with being a morning person or a night owl. You just are. Anything giving you an easy answer for a complex question is lying or selling you something. We expect all our dissatisfaction to disappear with one habit change because that’s what we’ve been peddled through advertising for decades. Unhappy in your marriage? Try this hair cream! Burned out at work? Get this car! It doesn’t work because it isn’t actually the problem.
Here’s the thing.
Resolutions have it backwards. They’re based on a set of ideals that you are a problem that needs fixing. You are not a problem. You are a person. People are not problems - they are people. You do not need fixing because you are not broken.
Resolutions are based on depravity because we are always trying to stop or start something to be better. You don’t need to be better. You ARE. We move so quickly to change who and how we are and we don’t even KNOW WHO AND HOW WE ARE. At least get to know who you are before you start changing yourself. You don’t even know what you’re changing. Resolutions reinforce a social idea that we are always in a deficit and needing to make up for it.
I call it the spiral of cosmic debt and you can read more about it here:
This spiral is seen even (maybe even especially) in the self-help world where we’re always trying to hone a trait or work on ourselves. We latch onto what is tangible because we feel out of control. The inner world is too unknown, too vast so instead we write check lists that we can check off. What about rest? What about knowing thyself? We focus so much on these tangible check boxes because we are petrified of knowing ourselves. More accurately - we are terrified of knowing our Selves and loathing ourselves, that everything that has ever been said derisively about us is actually true. We are terrified of our worst fear coming true. Of course we are.
Moving through life from this place of depravity communicates to our Bodies, to our psyche, that we are, in fact, unworthy, unlovable (fill in the un—— with your worst fear).
When making your affirmations, keep this in mind:
So instead of making resolutions, just to get to know yourself - as you are. Do the beautiful and terrifying thing and look inward - turn towards this enigma of your Self and see who & how you naturally are.
What is original to you, unchanging in you - the traits and ways of being that have been with you since you were a child or that you lost along the way but you know to be true? You deserve to be you.
How would your life be different if you actually believed you were already good? You are not a problem.
How would your life be different if you didn’t even have to be good at all? You don’t owe anyone goodness.
What are you so scared of in accepting yourself? What would happen if you accepted yourself fully as you are today?
My only resolution for you and for me is that we would become more of ourselves everyday. That tomorrow I will be more “me” than I am today and that in 5 years, I will be the most “me” I’ve ever been.