January Newsletter
“Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” Oscar Wilde
My handyman, and I use the term loosely, gives up drinking for the month of January every year, but has trouble staying the course. Nothing dismays a publican more than the idea of a dry January.
’Tis the season of reform. The pledges to drink less, save money, and lose weight are admirable, but as they are due to mass seasonal indoctrination, unlikely to succeed long-term. Isn’t “resolution” fundamentally the opposite of “revolution”? If that’s the case, I could argue that this approach could be challenging.
You, your old familiar self, are the nominating committee for change. You get to dictate to your new self the 2026 rules. Wherever such arrangements like this occur in the universe, they seldom end well. The police aren’t good at policing themselves. According to statistics, 80% of New Years’s resolutions are expected to last until the second week of January when the world collectively decides that February is a much better month for self-improvement. Is it possible that if you worried a little less about making pledges, you might find you enjoy the start of the New Year more?
I have nothing against the idea of changing one’s life completely. As George Orwell put it, “To tell the truth is a revolutionary act.” I know several people who should absolutely change jobs, partners and even countries. However, writing lists on the refrigerator and actually booking the airfare are two different things.
My father, a compulsive gambler, was fond of banning himself from casinos every January. He would write to all the casinos in London he could remember ever having gone to and demand that they refuse him entry. “Why not join Gamblers Anonymous?” I once asked him. “I don't want to belong to a group,” he told me. “It's just possible that there are people as silly as I or even sillier, but I don’t particularly want to meet them.” In the end it was my mother who put her foot down.
Surely, if you have to choose a month to abstain, it would be easier not to choose the month after you have over indulged. A case of cold turkey after too much hot turkey, perhaps? Going from spending twelve hours on the couch every day to deciding that in the New Year you will run five miles is setting yourself up for failure.
I am not, I hope, a man in love with himself. Although, I am sure there are those who would disagree. At the same time, I don’t want to change myself either. I think I know who I am and can live with a certain level of unpredictability. I have met a great many people in my life. Smart people, successful people, even famous people, but I have yet to meet one who really had the slightest idea what he or she was going to think or do next. Everyone at the end of the day is just guessing and beware of people that tell you otherwise.
Making small changes to your existence may be harmless but start with trying to like yourself more first. Here’s a New Year’s resolution for you. Promise to look yourself in the mirror every morning and repeat after me: “Good morning. I am one of the more interesting people I know. I hardly upset anyone yesterday. I am better off than about eighty-five percent of planet Earth. It doesn't matter that the toothpaste cap has been lost.” Then seize the day or go back to bed. The great thing is to make every day a happy day and stop fussing.
If you have enjoyed this newsletter, please book for my next Art Talk on the evening of January 26th in the aptly named Moroccan Room. A chat less about art and more about an attempt to justify a life lived too long in the glare of the midday sun or, as the Australians refer to that malady, Gone Troppo.
