New Year, Same You
Every year, many of us make new years resolutions. New year, new beginnings, and perhaps a newfound hope and approach to working towards the same old goals. It’s all in good spirits of course, you want to become a better version of yourself, and the new year is maybe a temporally symbolic way of turning a new page, and starting over.
Blue Monday
Of course for most of us, we don’t keep our new years resolutions for that long. Change is hard, after all. We quickly delve back into our former pre-new years selves, except we emerge feeling worse about our failures, and beat ourselves up over not committing to our goals. “Maybe next year”, you tell yourself.
This exhaustion usually happens around the third Monday of the month of January — dubbed Blue Monday. This is a cheeky term used to describe “the most depressing day of the year”.
Around this time, the weather is usually terrible, people have just returned back to work, with added weight from overeating and overexposure to their families throughout the holidays. Credit card debt for all that Christmas shopping is now due, and that burning passion for change through one’s new goals simmers down by the third week of the year.
This cocktail of events can leave one feeling miserable, dissatisfied, hopeless, and stuck, in many aspects of their lives.
Identity
Often its the case that we wrap our new years goals around this high-strung, pristine identity, entirely created and built up in our minds.
There’s this grand separation between the real self, and the ideal self. This sudden tension emerges between who you really are on December 31st, and who you want to suddenly become and embody, on January 1st.
The further the distance between the real self and the ideal self, the more stressed out and disappointed we become when we don’t see fast results, or stick to our newly defined, perfected version of ourselves.
We decide to make sudden and drastic changes to our lives most often on January 1st. Why so much emphasis on an arbitrary date, when you can decide to change your lifestyle on literally any other day of the year?
I’m writing this article in June - literally the furthest point from New Years Day, but the urgency to change, or be a certain way is probably not there for most of us, at least not right at this point in time. But suddenly a new year rolls around and…
…I’m not just going to lose weight and build muscle in the new year, I’m gonna get shredded like Ronnie Coleman. I’m going to buy overpriced, high quality protein powder. I’m going to buy Gym Shark apparel and invest in adjustable dumbbells. I’m going to sign an overpriced contract for a 1 year gym membership as a symbol of my commitment, and work out 7 days a week. I’m going to lose X pound by Y date, and be totally ripped for the summer…
Advertisers know all too well about the emotional exhaustion felt by many around the turn of the new year, and they prey on consumers by selling them on this identity of a fitter, leaner, more attractive version of themselves.
All of that is fine and dandy, but of course its being done to tease at your insecurities and get you to purchase mundane fitness supplies and supplements. Items that will likely spend the rest of the year collecting dust, and take up space in your home.
The fitness models on promotional clothing, accessories, and equipment, are on steroids or have unattainable body fat percentages that are not possible for most people, at least not in the short term. Still, they catch the eye, and the buyer thinks “I can be like this person too, if I buy this thing”.
Beyond the Barbell
But identity runs deeper than overpriced gym equipment.
Get on any dating app or ask a friend to describe themselves.
Can they do it without telling you what they do for work? How many references are there to their pets, favorite movies, shows, books, places, or other material things? How much do we use objects as a relational tool to describe how we identify ourselves?
Sure its fine to love your dog, religiously quote references from The Office, and share your passions about your work and your life, but these things don’t exactly define you. These are things that you enjoy, and things you put out there in hopes that someone with similar interests will also be personally compatible with the real you.
We’re tying together what we like with who we are, but we are human beings and not human doings. It seems for many, we mistakenly describe our interests, values, and desired behaviours as a replacement to describing who we really are — but who we are and what we do, could not be any more different.
Doing While Being
To identify with anything, "I am like this," is [an] abuse of your nature — Nisargadda Maharaj
Slavoj Žižek, the famous Slovenian philosopher, describes his writing process as not writing, but a two-step process of taking notes, and editing them.
By framing it this way, he doesn’t identify with the title of a writer (even though he literally does it for a living), and he doesn’t even tell himself that he is writing. Instead, he tells himself that he is simply taking notes about his research and observations. He then later goes back to those notes and edits them into something more structured and readable. The writing emerges through a process, but he doesn’t identify with the title of a writer, or the act of writing itself.
Oftentimes for many aspiring writers, the fear of staring into the pallid void of a blank word document induces crippling writers block, and brings about perfectionistic tendencies, sudden urges, anxieties, and more. The separation between the real self and the ideal self in our minds is so far removed from each other, that the inner tension becomes overwhelming. This all gets in the way of the most important part: Doing the actual writing.
The same can be said about the new years resolutioner. We amp ourselves up with this ideal version of who we want to be, or what we want to be doing, but that gets in the way of the true desire for the self to want to improve, be healthier, and live a more fulfilling life — free of the self-imposed burdens of perfectionism.
We identify with an external goal, but then that self-identification makes our identity feel more unidimensional, and less human. One can easily beat themselves up over not being able to do the one thing you should do, and then the inner voice becomes more critical of your perceived failures.
While its totally fine to describe yourself with your hobbies, interests, desires, and work (all great source of personal meaning), they can bring a barrage of shoulds, have-tos, musts, oughts, and a range of underlying emotions (both positive and negative) associated with the activities.
When asked “who are you” or “tell me about yourself” — the question is maybe asking about something deeper, something more permanent and inextricable from your social or environmental influencers.
Can you describe yourself without telling me about the things you enjoy doing? Who are you, really, as a human being?
Action & Identity
This might be a personal thing, but like Slavoj Žižek, I try not to identify with the things I engage with, in my day-to-day life. Through this process, I try not to identify with the activity, but separate my “self”, from the thing that I am presently engaging with. Some examples:
“Netflix Binger” > “I am going to enjoy watching TV today”
“Gym Rat” > “I am going to have a good workout and take care of my body”
“Therapist” > “I am going to give this client my full attention, care, and space to help them work through their own healing”
“Artist” > “I am going to experiment and tinker with media and see what emerges”
“Chef” > “I am going to try my best to make something healthy and delicious for myself and my loved ones”
Humans are both predictable, but also dynamic and changing. We can easily fall into the trap of identifying with something that we might truly enjoy and find pleasure in, in that moment, but our preferences and goals often change.
Perhaps like Žižek, it might be easier to almost trick our minds and be present in our activities, but in a way where we can frame such endeavors as something I am doing right now that I enjoy, but it does not define who I am or what I think of myself.
Imagine how many more people would fulfill their new years resolutions and goals, if it weren’t for the self-induced pressures tying activities, hobbies, or even lifestyle changes, with one’s identity. Heck, if you want to change and be a better version of yourself, why not beat the crowd and start now? Why wait until the turn of the new year? Are you really seeking change for yourself, or is it at least partially because others around you are also chasing radical metamorphosis?
Notice how the emotional urgency, perfectionism, shoulds, and oughts, can melt away when we frame what we love as a verb (I am doing this), and not an identifier (I am this).
You are still yourself, and you will always be yourself — regardless of whether you meet your goals or not. Tying one’s identity and purpose into the goals might help with getting motivated to start, but being consistent while remaining true to ourselves and who we are, might go further in helping us get to where we’d like to be.
Like Žižek, its even okay to further break down a verb (writing) into something less intimidating and more fruitful and engaging (note-taking and editing). Similarly, workouts aren’t there to lose belly fat and gain muscle, but as part of a self-care routine and being kind to your body. Netflix binges aren’t a replacement for your personality, but can be an outlet that you sometimes prefer to engage in, when you have some downtime.
Human nature is so much more complicated than our activities, hobbies, likes or dislikes. You too are endlessly complex and fascinating. Why de-humanize yourself with arbitrary labels and adjectives?
When describing yourself to others, it might help to think about your identifiers, and how they are distinct from the things you do. Verbs help describe the things our identity likes to engage with, but it is perhaps more important to remember that what we do, is not who we are.