Ponderings

New Year’s Eve, New Perspective

I remember lamenting with my siblings a few years back how New Year’s Eve is kind of the worst. “There’s so much pressure to do something spectacular to cap off the year,” my brother pointed out. I had to agree — New Year’s Eve always felt like an afterthought, then would suddenly arrive and impose.

Most New Year’s Eves I’ve had were nothing to write home about. The best one, ironically, was NYE 2019 — as in, right before COVID hit. My middle school friends and I went to one of their family cabins in Vermont, where we went sledding, drank Heady Toppers, played drinking games, and took shotskis. 2020 is our year! We were so wrong. The following year, I had grand plans to go to Vegas with two of my best friends for NYE, which came to a grinding halt when I landed and found out my brother had COVID. Cue me quarantining for the next two weeks in my apartment, alone and restless.

This year, I found myself hating on NYE for another reason: it wasn’t that I felt pressured to do something wild, but rather I found it foolish that people think that NYE is the only time to reflect on the year. It’s kind of arbitrary, isn’t it? Shouldn’t we be reflecting throughout the year? Making resolutions and trying to better ourselves? Why should it all land on one particular day? I was shaking my head at all the people drinking to excess and posting Instagram recaps.

Last night, however, I realized how cynical I was being. I went to a friend’s house for a couple of hours. Not even a close friend, but a friend no less. He and his girlfriend had invited a mix of people, and so while I recognized some faces, it was a mostly unfamiliar crowd. I didn’t really mind it; I can get along with practically anyone. And the more I chatted with folks about climbing and other nonsense and scarfed down incredible caramelized onion dip, I realized it just didn’t matter. Yes, New Year’s Eve can be about celebrating the year past and welcoming a new one in. It can be about surrounding yourself with your all-time favorite people, getting that kiss from the person you love most, engaging in some debauchery, and yes, reflecting. Or it can be a really great excuse to get together with some folks, eat some good food, maybe enjoy a beverage, and go to sleep. I did the latter, and I feel pretty satisfied.

As much as I had been criticizing people for using New Year’s as an excuse to reflect, I’ve recognized it’s as good a time as any to reflect. It doesn’t mean I can’t continually reflect over the year, reassess, reprioritize. The changing of the year just helps package memories neatly — helps you see the ebbs and flows of life in a more succinct way. It makes it less daunting to form resolutions when you’re reviewing 12 months, rather than years and years of successes and failures.

I always have a list of resolutions, from the serious to inane. I took a look at my 2024 resolutions and was pleased to see I actually accomplished most of them: run another ultramarathon; host an oat milk party; visit Steamboat Springs; send a 5.13 outside; complete some house projects. The only ones I failed to do were 1) get sponsored (a somewhat joke, but I honestly really would like to be sponsored) and 2) say “no” more. The latter I don’t think I necessarily failed, but could improve upon. I definitely found myself backing out of things more than I usually do and trying to preserve my capacity (I refuse to flake most of the time, sometimes to my detriment). Still, I want to work on boundary setting more.

One of those boundaries — and 2025 resolutions — is with myself. I have received repeated feedback from loved ones that I all too often play the victim. I never have felt that the world is out to get me, but when setbacks compile, I have a lot of trouble controlling my anxiety — and that anxiety oftentimes gets expressed too much. During one of my first sessions with my therapist, she asked me to describe what my anxiety feels like, visually. I told her it feels like a waterfall — a powerful cascade of problems that can’t stop. Obviously, controlling something that looks and feels uncontrollable seems like a fruitless task. But perhaps what I really need to do is start visualizing hardships as less of a waterfall and more of a storm — something that can feel quite powerful in the moment, but will eventually pass.

I think much of my willingness and ease at expounding upon my hardships to others is because I have a great capacity to hear others vent. For whatever reason, I am often the person people turn to when they’re upset or need to talk things through. I don’t say this as a point of pride; it’s simply a fact. I feel quite privileged to be a person that others feel they can open up to, and as such, I try to be the most empathetic listener I can be. I had the epiphany recently that I am so open to telling people my woes simply because there is no stigma around it for me; I welcome other people’s woes without issue, so why shouldn’t they do the same for me? However, not everyone has that emotional capacity.

That all being said, my other main resolution is to be less hard on myself. I have been afforded so many privileges in this life, but all of my major accomplishments — whether in academia, sport, or my career — have been the result of me working really, really hard. It’s very rare for me to not put 100% in whatever I do. And for that reason, it’s not fair to beat myself up when things aren’t going the right way. While I’m going to try to be very conscientious about when and how I vent — and to who — I’m not going to criticize myself if sometimes I unravel or yes, play the victim. No one is perfect 100% of the time.

Just as I came to the conclusion that New Year’s Eve can be whatever you want it to be, so too is it obvious to me that life in general is the same way. Each day is whatever you want to make of it. It doesn’t always have to be sunshine and rainbows, but we can find contentment daily if we have the right perspective. I strive to make my perspective a more optimistic one.

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December 30, 2024