The Expectation Gap, #RealTalk: “New Year, New Me” is a Piece of Sh*t

… Or just a marketing ploy.

… Or just a marketing ploy.

Bottom line:

• You can’t become someone else without losing yourself.

So why aren’t you good enough the way you are?

A question:

• Why do you need to “become someone else” to be a better person, full stop?

Spoiler alert: that was rhetorical.

You don’t.

What you need to do is evaluate what makes you, you, such that you can harness it to be — or become — the best version of yourself.

Sound a little self-help mumbo-jumbo-y?

Maybe it is, but it works — so I make no apology for it.

Fundamentally: there is nothing wrong with you.

You are a human being, just like me. We have strengths and weaknesses. We make mistakes. Hopefully, we strive to learn from these; to become “better”; to move forward and make progress within ourselves as well as professionally and personally within our lives as a whole — and hey, maybe we even actualise this once in a while.

But change takes time. There is no magic fix. And changing yourself and your life is not “a walk in the park”.

Change is hard. It takes great strength to choose to change; to commit to it, to stick with it even when it gets difficult. To stay in spite of the challenges you, I, we will invariably face.

But change is worth it.

And yes, it really is “about the journey, not the destination”.

A journal entry from 22nd August 2017

When the love in your heart is what gives you the most: it keeps you alive.

When you were “born to live, not just survive”, but it’s a good place to start.

The only place, in fact.

Single, solitary, self. We need that time, that space, that place, to face. Tete-a-tete. Don’t look, let alone walk, away — as if you could. As if you would. As if you could, would, want to.

I can’t give up on you.

I can’t, won’t, refuse.

That’s love: it’s not always beautiful.

It hurts.

But it’s strong.

I believe in you, in me, in us. Cradling. Gentle touch. Virtual *hugs*, for when the physical is too much. For when the body is shame is pain is suffocation, emanating; for when loss is lizard-skin, breaking; for when I am aching, shaking, tired of making the same mistakes over and over again — you are here. Always. I find comfort with you, in me. A miracle; make-believe.

I think therefore I am: philosophy.

I look therefore I see: visionary.

I love therefore I feel: beauty. What is and what can be.

That soft sinking feeling, collapsing. Into, unto, onto oneself. Sheets against flesh, body splayed canvas daubed, pawed, adored. To be is not, no longer, a question: implicit, prospective, redemptive — all in one sentence. These streets may not be paved with gold, but there’s life in the old dog yet.

It’s time to rest now; to sleep, perchance to dream.

May I, you, we find peace. That’s all we’ve ever wanted.