New Year Resolutions and how to survive them

Insightful unwanted advice by Dr. Ana.

Some pics of my desk this January.

Det kommer vintern in i näsan!¹

E, age 4.

Today it was cold, and windy and miserable. To those of you who envision snowy landscapes in Sweden, let me tell you, winter in the south of Sweden is no pick-nick. It doesn’t snow. It is grey and wet and cold. If it does snow, it immediately rains transforming a bucolic 1cm white coat into grey slush in 3 seconds. It is windy, like, 1°C wind with rain is my idea of hell and a regular day where I live from the 15th of November to the 15th of March, give or take considering global warming and such phenomena. Swedes keep repeating like a chant “There is no bad weather, just bad clothes,” and like any lie repeated a million times, they actually believe it. Bad weather from November to the 1st of January is bearable because there is so much going on: preparing for Christmas, and the lights, and the markets, and people greeting “God Jul”² everywhere, and visiting family and loving humankind. But when the hype is over, you still have three months of fifty shades of grey to survive. This has shaped my theory about New Year’s resolutions. These things were invented in places with bleak winters to get over the post-Christmas slump when winter is at its worst, and there is nothing to celebrate, just plain bad weather and not much sun to speak of. With these resolutions, one has something to focus on: the mirage that one needs to be better. You need the resolution just to be able to survive until spring, when you will be able to ditch the stupid, unattainable (and unnecessary) goals and go on about your life just as merrily (or even more so) as if you were still eating buckets of quinoa and getting up at 4:30 to cycle 50Km on that peloton bike which will just start to gather dust come April until the following January when its purpose will be again to let you have something to focus on to survive the dead of winter.

I asked my friend AH, who is originally from India but has lived in the the USA for the longest time, and she concurs: “New Year’s resolution is a western concept. In India, there are several calendars- depending on the region you come from- and hence many different new years are celebrated, none of them being in January.” I cannot imagine any reasonable person living in some Caribian paradise where the weather changes from good to better and the sun is out for 12 hours every single day of the year having the need to put themselves through the stupidity of “On the first of January I will start XYZ” when the 1st of January is just as good as the 7th of June and looks exactly the same. So now that we understand that New Year's resolutions are just a survival skill, we should never feel bad about ditching them because, let’s face it, kale is not that nice for breakfast. We should also feel smarter for even not starting them in the first place. As my friend CL puts it, “Then I am finally acclimated to the winter weather since this year I’ve decided I’m done with these stupid New Year’s resolutions.”

Thomas J Bevan

wrote a very compelling argument against the self-improvement industry, so I do not have to. Read it; it will be really useful when the shine of the new year starts to fade and the self-loathing starts to creep in for failing at eating boiled fish and broccoli because your friends, the real flesh ones, took pity on you and organized a dinner with steak and wine and goddammit, there was tiramisú in the dessert menu. It will also be useful when you snooze the alarm clock that goes off at 4:30, and when you next know it, it’s 7:00, and there goes your morning run, the 30’ meditation and the 10’ cold shower. Grab a coffee (no green tea this morning) and run to catch the bus. All I want to say is that, regardless of the many “that girl” videos you watch and the tens of books written by gym bros who are also successful CEOs telling you otherwise, you are enough. You want to be healthier? Go ahead! You want to read more literature? I hear there are still plenty of libraries open, and library cards are still free! But make sure that choice is yours, not some goal you think you need to attain because some moron told you you will be happy like this. You won’t.

I used to be a sucker for New Year Resolutions. When April came, I had always invariably abandoned them and thought myself fickle and without determination despite having gone through med school and a residency in oncology, having defended my doctoral thesis, being reasonably good at my job, and having friends who not only liked me but could count on me to both show up to party like a pro and take them to the doctor if needed. Human nature can be absurd like this. My take on surviving the dead of the winter took a 180° turn when I moved to Sweden and had my first child. P was born in February 2015. I hated being pregnant, so on the 1st of January 2015, my only goal was to pop the boy out. And when he was born, maternity turned out to not be pink and white flowers, and lullabies and a simple new routine to ease into³. So I decided the last thing I needed was to beat myself up for eating a muffin or not attending the swimming training I had planned because I would rather watch one more episode of Downtown Abbey.

I took the other route— to survive until spring comes I do beautiful things. For example, I write letters to my friends⁴ , but I make it an art. I seal the envelope with wax and use expensive paper or the reverse of the drawings of my children. A couple of years ago, I bought a second-hand typewriter from 1945. The ad said it worked, and I had the guy’s address so I could beat him up if it didn’t (or maybe just return it), so I bought it. When I got it, I went to this wonderful shop there is in the centre of town and bought some universal typewriter ribbon, and since then, I type away while imagining what other things had been typed on this thing of beauty. I cannot tell you the joy it brings me to hear the tick tick tick tick as I press the keys or the glorious music of the bell that rings when I reach the end of a line. Last year, I bought some feathers to carve the tip into a pen and dip them in ink to write and feel like Jane Austen at the same time. I was not sure if they were ducks’; much to my chagrin, they were not geese, which I could not find anywhere, and I had read somewhere that these are the best to make your own pen. I tried (and failed) and kept writing blotched paragraphs, so I gave up and did not think much about it. Certainly, I did not hate myself for it. This year, I found a YouTube video tutorial and made a new attempt, but then my dad told me that he used to have nib pens when he was a child in school, and the teacher would fill up the ink wells when they told him they had run out of it. The first thing I thought was, “My father is old.” The second thing I thought was that if the feather approach was not a good one, I could do the nib approach, so I got me a couple of nibs and a nib holder. As I looked through the shelves of my favourite shop, I found a calligraphy book. “Darn, if only I could write my letters to make them look old and beautiful” I thought, so I got me a calligraphy book. And here I am practising calligraphy and making crêpe paper flowers with CA just because, lighting candles on beautiful candlesticks that look like they were stolen from a castle and going out for runs only because I like to run. Hibernating soaked in beauty, waiting for life to wake up again.

Yours in divine (im)perfection,

Dr. Ana,

Expert in unsolicited advice

This is my submission for the Soaring Twenties Social Club Symposium. We are a group of idlers who share ideas and companionship. Each month, STSC members create something around a theme, this month's theme being “Resolutions.” I hope you enjoy it.

1. “Winter is coming up my nose!” E explaining so well how the air is too chilly to bear.

2. “Merry Christmas” in Swedish.

3. Another day I will tell you about that adventure. It was as bucolic as the Swedish winter.

4. I do this all year round, but I get more of a kick out of it in winter.