2017 is going to be no different from 2016. If there’s anything that’s going to be experiencing any kind of change in the coming year, it’s going to have to be us. Because quite frankly, a new calendar only comes with dates and special days marked in red and sometimes an ever-changing weather pattern that doesn’t care to know if we are ready for cold, warmth or anything in between. New Years, like many other things, just happen.
And this time, I want to be ready.
I’ve always entered into a new year believing it held some kind of opportunities for me. New chances, a new hope, a fresh start at something, anything that screamed “change“- as though it were an old lover who came back repentant of their ways- promising to be better at loving you.
I’ll never come to understand why we give dates and days so much credit than they actually deserve. Because that’s what they are, and have always been: a couple of days, pouring into months and leaping into another cycle of year.
They are simply days with date stamps on them until we choose to wake up and live and create and dare ourselves to be all the things we didn’t think we could become. And that, in no way, is the responsibility of a new year. That’s completely on us.
What we wish to see, what we desire to change, what we want to accomplish doesn’t have its power resting in a new dawn. The marvellous reality is that we are responsible for giving 2017 a good story to tell.
I’ve always been a carrier of sad stories. I don’t know when I’ve never had to complain about being stuck in traffic, about the demands of school or work, and about having very little time yet, with so much to be done.
This year, the subject of my story has been my body.
It isn’t a topic I raised in group discussions or randomly brought up in a private conversation. It was the kind of inner battle that you fight against yourself, beating your flaws out of shape and being so terrified by what you would find when you looked at yourself in a mirror.
I worried about my body. I couldn’t stop thinking about my weight curve peaking out, I couldn’t help it when people passed genuine comments about how I lean I looked, how loose my clothes hanged on me. Walking in the trenches of weight misery was depressing, a constant war against myself, my esteem, and every good thing I was taught to appreciate growing up.
I worried that 2016 was a bad year for my body to grow, flourish.
Here’s where I went wrong and I want to hit home the fact that there’s nothing wrong with the year 2016; or any other year, for that matter. We have no broken years. No special years that shoot a star over our heads and promise nothing but goodness. All we have are the days and time and power to choose between being defined by a season or defining every moment by how we live our lives.
I am tired of blaming the years and desperately hoping that change is a wrapped gift that appears on my doorstep at January 1. Because change is hard work. It isn’t luxurious or comfortable. It requires an adjustment and a shift from all the things we are used to. Change is discipline and sacrifice and everything it takes to achieve new results. Change doesn’t just happen.
2017 is going to be no different from 2016 if we keep doing the same things. I am going to have to give the new year a better story to tell. I am going to have to embrace this face, this body, this gift of life that I’ve been given. I’m going to have to be conscious about eating well and resting enough if I want the best of health this year
I hope that as you yearn for growth and change in a million forms, you remember to love yourself along the way. On the nights when wrapping yourself in the word “beautiful” doesn’t seem to work, think Oceans. Mountains. Roses and Tulips. Fireworks, music, Literature and arts. Think of colours, stars and the laugh of a child. Bird song in the morning, and big blue skies. These things stop at nothing to evolve and become. And now think of yourself. You’re all those things and more.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
