New Year Manifesto…..

As a species, we humans really do amaze me sometimes.

Now I don’t believe in God, but if there is some kind of holy deity that one day, in its infinite wisdom, decided it would be a rather spiffing idea to create us wonders of the universe, then surely the biggest mistake he or she ever made was giving us the freedom to make our own choices. Mainly for the fact that we humans are all incredibly stupid and will surely always make the wrong one at any given opportunity. That's a proven fact. Give an idiot freedom of choice, and we will surely pick the worst one every single time.

The second huge mistake was giving us emotions.

Oh boy, the holy one really screwed up when he gave us emotions.

We live our lives based solely on what our emotions tell us to do. As emotions are far more potent than any rational thought we have in our brains, they drown out any notion of reasonable thinking that we may possess. You suddenly have what you think is an amazing idea, one that is fuelled purely by some great big green spurt of emotion that explodes in your head like a firecracker, and your sensible side is going “Hang on a mo, are we sure about this?”, but you naturally, of course, choose to ignore it. Sensible sucks. Emotions rule. So your rational side is left by the wayside, waving its arms in the air and trying to get your attention but failing miserably, like someone with a sore throat who is shouting at you the middle of a tornado, you just don’t hear them as it’s far too faint. And by then it’s way too late anyway. That great idea you had, in the cold light of day, not looking so great now, is it? Yep, you screwed up again.

So if you combine freedom of choice with our complete inability to separate our emotions from our rational side, you basically have a whole species that is making mistake after mistake every single day, and then hating themselves for doing so.

So this time of year, we all strive to change ourselves. We set out detailed plans on how we are going to mould ourselves into something different. To not make the same mistakes that we made last year and to emerge into 2010 like the beautiful butterflies that we are, all shiny and new, with our freshly created diet regimes, our firm belief that we are forging a new path for ourselves, the breaking dawn of a pure and wonderful life. It’s truly going to be something amazing. This is it everybody! Hold on tight! New life coming right up!!!!

It’s not going to happen.

Sorry to prick your bubble, burst your balloon, piss on your parade and any other well worn simile you care to fling at it.

We are human beings. Our one concrete notion in life is to be a fuck up. It’s what we do best. You give me someone who can confidently tell me that they are happy with every aspect of their life and I would probably be looking at a liar. Nobody is really happy with every aspect of their life, they wouldn't be human otherwise.

We are never going to be truly happy because we will never allow ourselves to be happy. We are bombarded on a daily basis, from every single angle; with people telling us how useless our lives are, how if we did this one thing, everything would be better. Buy this car, cut your hair like this, wear these shoes, loose a stone in weight, go on holiday here, belong to this group, not that group over there, put down that cake, and get a new career, change, change, change. All of this is pounded into our subconscious by all aspects of the media, and our own social circles, until we are almost breathless and dizzy from it all, and with an almost underlying sensation that we are missing out on some wonderful and elusive life. This life that everybody else is having and one we seemed to have mislaid the invite too.

We spend so long reaching and yearning for the things that we think we need, we sometimes fail to actually stop and look around at the things we actually have. Great things. Amazing things. People that love us, a whole network of folk who, when things go wrong, will be there to carry us through it. What about health? Most people that are reading this will hopefully have had a fit and healthy 2009. That's something to cherish, isn’t it? And those that have had brushes with ill health through all of last year, they will probably have grasped this fact a long time ago, the things we have far outweigh the things we think we need. There are so many things for which we should be really grateful for. But no, not us, we think we need to change our lives because somebody, somewhere, has said that what we are doing is not good enough. That we can be better than what we are.

We will probably attack the month of January, with all our new resolutions tucked firmly under our arms, with all the gusto that we could possibly muster. But over time, as our stupid little brains start thinking “Bloody hell, this is hard work!” our steely reserve will start to falter, and one by one, these resolutions will fall by the wayside. But is that such a bad thing? Should we really beat ourselves up over it?

And once again it all boils down to emotions. Mainly one called regret. Next to unrequited love, the worst kind of emotion there is. Regret can seep into the very fibre of your being and poison you with its reedy little voice.

Ohhh, but what if you had done this?

Ohhh, your life would have been so much different if you hadn’t of done this.

During a lifetime, you build up a whole catalogue of regrets. A list of moments that if given a time machine, you would pop back and play the cards you was dealt a whole lot differently. But time machines don't exist, and to live your life plagued with the regrets of the past is a total waste of time. And yet that it seems that is how we like to live.

Now I am certainly not advocating that you do nothing to change your lives. If you have the willpower and the strength to actually see out your convictions, then I truly applaud you, I honestly do. It really takes something special to be able to follow through like that.

But if you suddenly find yourself faltering, and that all these promises that you have made yourself are not quite working out, then for the love of Morgan Freeman, don’t beat yourself up over it. Chances are the life that you are currently living isn’t as bad as people would like you to believe. So, you screwed up? YOU’RE A HUMAN BEING! WE DO THAT!

Just stop, take one really good look around you, and realise that no matter what shit things have happened here to lead you to this point, you are alive and you have the rest of your life to change things, if that's what your heart is telling you to do. Why cram it all into one year? Why suddenly feel the need to change things right this very second? Is it all honestly and truly that bad?

You may not have the right car, the right hair, the right shoes, you may be carrying a few more pounds than society deems to be ascetically pleasing, your furniture may be a few seasons out of date, your career might not be what you hoped it would be, but bottom line is, fuck all that. Serioulsy, fuck it. It’s a truly wonderful world out there that contains far too many beautiful things that you could ever see in a lifetime. If you want to do something, maybe try and see a few of them before you die? Or just sit at home eating cookies. It’s up to you. Don’t let some twat, with this so called, “Perfect life”, tell you how you are supposed to live yours, because chances are, they are still probably weeping into a giant tub of Hagen Daz every midnight, ruing over missed opportunities, just like the rest of us poor simple sacks of flesh.

It’s your life; you do what you want with it. And if anyone tries to tell you any different, just twist their nipples and run off laughing.

Happy New Year!

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