#19: Five Things to Let Go of in 2023
The first thing is thinking you’ll actually stick to your new years resolution
Merry Christmas (in the style of that guy from JLS).
‘Tis the season to overindulge, cry over glasses of wine and fizz, and create resolutions that you may or may not stick to until mid-January. I know a lot of people think new years resolutions are nonsense because time is a man-made concept and why should you wait for a new year to make a change, just start now! Okay, Jennifer.
Having a deadline by which you must kick bad habits and a start-date for your new lifestyle can be so helpful in the effort to actually get things done and make a change in your life. There are so many things people should really be leaving behind every year (since, somewhere during each year after we’ve made our resolutions to go jogging every other morning, we all fall back into bad habits), but for those of you who are young and lost, with high emotions and hormones and in desperate need of a sense of direction, I can think of five pretty easy changes you can make right now. It’s time to start liking yourself.
The situationship that you’re holding onto in hopes it’ll turn into something more
Repeat after me: If someone wants to be with you, they will not hesitate to let you know! They will run to your house in the pouring rain, send you flowers and a massive bar of chocolate, or simply text you saying ‘I want to be with you and only you.’ It’s that simple. If they aren’t doing any of that, I have some terrible news that you already know but are too stubborn (or smitten) to admit.
The great, amazing, freeing news that you don’t want to hear is that you don’t actually need to be hurting like this. You do not need to be fretting every single night and wondering whether you seem ‘too eager’ for the right person. You don’t need to walk on eggshells in fear that you might push them further away from wanting a real relationship with you.
Love is free of anxiety, and really, that’s all anybody wants in the end, right? You shouldn’t fear being yourself. If you’re an eager beaver and want to shower your partner with love, you should be allowed to do that; you’re acting cool and nonchalant when really you just want to bake them cookies and be the big spoon.
Unfortunately, the hard pill that everybody throws into the ocean because they don’t want to swallow it, is that if someone hasn’t made it clear they want to be with you, it’s because they do not want you. Not really. Not enough, anyway. Kick the situationship to the curb, because it’s more hassle and heartbreak than it’s worth. The right person will come along, I really, truly promise you.
For those of you who can stomach the truth in a more brutal fashion: If you want a relationship and they don’t, it’s because they’re waiting to see if someone better will come along. Everybody wants to love and be loved, it just takes the right person. And that’s not you.
The fear of ageing
You know why you shouldn’t fear ageing? Because the alternative is death. And if you’re the kind of person that would rather die young and beautiful, fair enough.
But for those of you who actually want to live your life as it’s supposed to be lived, stop spending those precious minutes and hours worrying about preventing and eradicating wrinkles. Before you know it, you’ll be in your fifties and thinking about how you spent your twenties trying not to laugh too hard in case you developed crows feet or pouring hundreds of pounds into anti-ageing fads that you saw on the internet.
Signs of ageing are signs of a life well-lived. They are signs of happiness and sadness, anger and excitement, joy and sorrow. What are you scared of? Looking sixty when you’re — gasp — sixty? I do feel like a lot of it stems from the idea of women subconsciously wanting to look younger and better than other women their age, but that’s a conversation for another time. All I’m going to say is you don’t have men being incessantly bombarded with anti-ageing remedies.
You are fortunate to experience ageing. Instead of worrying about the elasticity of your skin, you should be focusing on cultivating a healthy body and mind through exercise, hobbies, and spending time with your loved ones. Not on which botox you should be getting at twenty-two.
The guilt of not having it all figured out
Most people don’t have it all figured out. I feel like we’re in really strange times right now, and we have been for a while. We’ll continue to be so for another while.
Those two/three years That Shall Not Be Named really threw a spanner in the works and made us all feel like we lost time — and we did. Some plans were put on halt, others had to be redirected, many things in society and the world changed in a way that just made everything harder for us. A lot of people are in a tumultuous time in their lives and the best thing you can do is your best. Cringe, I know. But it’s the truth. Eventually things fall into place — not by themselves, as you will need to put in work, but that doesn’t mean you need to have a five-year plan written up (despite what the internet will tell you); you just need to take things one step at a time.
Think about what your biggest goals are or what changes you want to make and decide what little steps you’re going to take to start getting there. Don’t beat yourself up when life gets in the way.
Comparing yourself to people online
Social media is made up of a bunch of people carefully curating a profile to show you the good parts of their lives. Everyone has some shit going on behind the scenes, and your shit is going to be different to mine.
Someone your age might be posting about the five holidays they’ve been on this year and the new car they’ve just bought, but they won’t talk about how they drink themselves to oblivion every weekend because they got dumped last month. You might be complaining about the payments on your financed car and the dent the grocery shopping has caused, but you also have a loving partner and family at home. You might both weigh up your problems differently, but that is exactly why comparing yourself to people is absolutely futile! Your happy might not be the same as their happy.
It’s also worth constantly reminding yourself that people have not been given the same opportunities; what matters is how you use what has been given to you. The only people you should be comparing yourself to are who you were yesterday and who you want to be tomorrow. Take the influencer lifestyle with a pinch of salt. Of course you’re going to be mad when someone has been holidaying around the USA in the middle of a cozzy livs and is complaining about having to come back to their sad and miserable UK penthouse. They’re the anomaly, not you.
Regrets
They serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever.
This is something that I learnt a long time ago. I used to hold onto regrets for so long that they would burn me every single day, and now, letting them go feels like a huge, physical relief. Shit happens, things don’t go the way we want them, we often do things we later realise we shouldn’t have. The immediate feeling of regret is what I can only describe as a piercing, hot pain that lingers for as long as you will allow it to.
The beauty is that with each situation that goes awry, we get a lesson from it. Take the lesson and add it to your bank, but let the memory go. You don’t need it. The pain will dissipate almost immediately.
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