Being resolute in my resolve to stick to my resolutions

It’s a brand new year. Every year I start with an invigorated sense of purpose as one year decays and dies, and a new year starts with all of the gleaming promise of something untainted by anything truly shit happening to me. Not yet, anyway. I had a conversation with someone earlier this week who wryly observed that this is perhaps the worst time of the year to begin with resolutions of any kind, since they usually involve breaking some bad habits and starting some good ones. After all, why on earth would you decide to begin this endeavour in January, the darkest, bleakest and coldest of months? But actually, I don’t see it that way at all. It’s a bare kind of a month, with nothing of the glittering distractions and temptations to excess of the previous one, and a bit of a blank canvas on which to paint new shapes and colours. I sense the days lengthening and this gives me hope and renewed purpose.

This year has started well. I gave myself a week to fully adjust to the fact that it really is 2017 (2017!) and this week I have begun, properly, as I mean to go on. It started on Saturday when I was sitting on my sofa and I genuinely felt like my legs were full of energy, and the urge to DO SOMETHING became overwhelming. One of my resolutions is to get fit again. Not stupidly gym bunny fit. Just fit enough to run about a bit and not need an inhaler and a lie down afterwards. And so, I have started the NHS Couchto 5k podcast series which previously helped me to complete two 10k races in 2013 and 2014. So far I have completed two ‘runs’ or rather, brisk walks interspersed with short bursts of jogging that have fully underlined for me just how much fitness I have lost over the months of relatively little movement. I was a little pink and puffing after that but, oh boy! I had forgotten just how much I love the endorphins that any form of exercise in the open airs gives you. If you haven’t tried it, I can seriously recommend it. If, like me, you are worried about running or consider yourself to be anything but a runner, I cannot reassure you enough that this is by far the gentlest and nicest way to ease yourself into running that I've come across. Okay, so the music they play on the podcast is that generic stuff exercise videos employ when they don’t want to pay a lot of money for licensing, but Laura’s warm encouragements to ‘go for it’ coming in at opportune moments are just what you need, like a little friend sitting on your shoulder telling you how great you’re doing. If only I could employ Laura for all things in my life. I think I’d get that tax return done a lot quicker.

I’ve also done my first yoga class of the year and I wasn’t quite the petrified husk I expected to be following a couple of weeks off the mat. And I’ve had a couple of nice, brisk walks around the city and in the countryside. I started on New Year’s Day where, minus a hangover (makes a nice change) I went for a walk in the rain up Brandon Hill and around and about, with nary a soul in sight. Today I went for a lovely wintry walk first thing around Kings Weston House and Blaise Castle grounds, fortified by a pleasingly sweet hot chocolate, and fine conversation from my walking partner. Two hours flew by and I felt pretty amazing at the end. We are spoiled in Bristol for wonderful places to stretch our pins and take in the sights and sounds of the city. The Harbourside is a perennial favourite, but so is the railway path that stretches between Bristol and Bath, and the Frome Valley walk through Snuff Mills, to name a few. If you have any other suggestions, and if you feel like joining me for any of the above, just let me know. It's far easier and arguably more enjoyable to stick to a new exercise plan if you involve other people. After all, friends can usually hold you to account more effectively than your own inner voice. 

Apparently it takes about three months for a habit to form. It will take more than one week of activity, but I'm confident that I'll be able to keep it  up. I wish everyone reading this good luck with all of your good intentions this year and may they manifest into something real and tangible in the very near future, if they haven't already done so.

How I learned to give up the doof doofs and the circles of shame, and became a happier person instead

Most people are surprised when I tell them that I used to be a massive fan of Eastenders.  They are even more surprised when I say that I used to watch Hollyoaks for a time as well.  And I read Heat magazine.  It used to take me all of 30 minutes to digest the reading material in one copy of Heat - the endless lauding but mostly shaming of celebrities, often on the same page, and certainly in the same edition.  I used to semi-consciously compare myself with the rich and celebrated (often because they were rich and nothing else) and feel some sense of mean-spirited satisfaction that at least I was not in possession of a blurrily-papped hairy armpit, even if I was also not in possession of the Caribbean holiday or designer swimwear of the owner of said armpit.

I used to think of it as frothy light reading to contrast with the weightier stuff I read for my work or for my own personal edification.  It was like junk food – tasty at the time, but at best unsatisfying and at worst leaving me with a strangely hollow feeling and a rather nasty taste in my mouth. And the Eastenders habit?  Again, some mindless escapism, or that’s what I told myself.  I certainly didn’t feel educated or enlightened by these particular habits, but I didn’t see any harm in them either.  That was, until I began to get the creeping sense that with every ‘doof doof’ of the closing credits of ‘Enders, I would feel ever more acutely depressed in the wake of the escalating calamities that fell on the characters’ shoulders each week.

All this changed about four or five years ago.  It occurred to me that if I were to feel pain for people I didn’t know personally, it would be better if they were real people instead of fictionalised stereotypes.  I’m not sure exactly when the epiphany occurred, but I stopped reading Heat magazine and watching any soaps of any description.  I even went for two years without a TV license, as the cockney soap was about the only thing that compelled me to switch on the TV.  Even now, although I have a license, my TV is rarely on except to watch something specific, and I fill my evenings with reading as much as viewing.

The ever-incisive George Monbiot recently wrote an article in the Guardian where he explains that society’s obsession with celebrity has been quite deliberately constructed by the media in order to distract us from what really matters, as well, of course, as selling us stuff we don’t need in order to ape the lifestyles of people we don’t know.  In the article, he says that ‘people who are the most interested in celebrity are the least engaged in politics, the least likely to protest and the least likely to vote’.  And I can say that from my own personal experience this is absolutely true.  Within a month or two of abandoning my trashy reading and viewing habits, I was engaged in volunteer work with the Happy City in Bristol and actively seeking to take part in community events.  Community and connection are essential components of a happy existence, and instead of catastrophising over fictional characters, or ogling celebrities, I was making friendships and connecting with real people, and feeling part of something bigger and worthwhile.

Over time, I also became vastly more politically aware.  In the last few years, I’ve taken part in several demonstrations, done a bit of canvassing and campaigning for the Green Party and to stay in Europe, and even considered becoming a councillor, something I have not ruled out for the future.  All of these things have given me a sense of purpose and autonomy that hours spent catching up with the ‘Enders Omnibus could not hope to produce in a month of Sundays.  I’ve also read more classic literature in the last few years than all of the previous thirty-five combined, and that’s no bad thing either.  But perhaps most importantly of all, I am a happier person than I was four or five years ago.  Happier, better read, better informed, and probably a better person too.

This post is inspired by a recent article from the Guardian entitled 'Celebrity isn't just harmless fun - it's the smiling face of the corporate machine' by George Monbiot:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/20/celebrity-corporate-machine-fame-big-business-donald-trump-kim-kardashian