Ah, New Year's Eve. Whenever a new year comes and goes, I'm reminded (and almost unbearably so) of The Lion King, Simba held poignantly up into the sky, the expanse of majestic land sprawling beneath him. Circle of life, blah blah, all that. Mostly, it just really makes me want a baby lion.
It's no mystery that the start of a new year is all about resolutions. Tomorrow, people will start running, start organizing, start packing lunches. But tomorrow, I'm going to stop. 2013 is my Year of the No, which could also totally be a subtitle of a comic book featuring yours truly, but instead will be my personal brand of the New Year's Resolution (dun dun dunnn).
Basically, I'm a yes person. I agree to stuff almost constantly that I have absolutely no interest in doing. As a result, I find myself cancelling often, hawing around with a vague and relentless sense of guilt that's just heavy enough to make me feel like a worse version of myself than I was the day before. Why do I do this?
Bluntly put, I want to please everyone. I want every single person on the entire planet to like me, and as a result, I'm not making anyone truly happy, not even myself, and that's where it all begins, yeah?
And thus, today begins the momentous occasion of No. I'm taking all of that energy I've used coming up with lame excuses, fending off nagging guilt, and scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel for some semblance of inspiration and investing it all back into myself. Because I can't do everything, but I can sure as heck delegate where the bits and pieces of myself are going.
Saying no to bullshit commitments means I'm giving myself permission to say yes to so many other things: my writing, my metal sculpting, and my relationship with the sexy BAMF known as my shmoyfriend. Saying no let's me say yes to new friends, to spending more time with old friends, and to continue excitedly in the pursuit of figuring out exactly what it is that makes me furiously happy.
I'm not waiting until January first to put this plan into action because I don't want to. For the first time in my entire life, I'm confident enough to know without a doubt that I'm worth my own time. I'm worth an hour in my favorite coffee house to write a new chapter. I'm worth a nap in the sun with my cat. And most importantly, I'm worth the amount of bravery it takes to deliver a polite but firm, No. No fucking thank you.
