Breathe

Take one deep breath.

That is what I tell myself every time a new year rolls around.

Each year filled with goals that I must admit to never living up to. For example back in 2018 I said to myself that I would go an entire January without eating any chicken nuggets. After a long and tirelessly battle, I succumbed two days later. The seductive call of McDonald’s chicken nuggets conquered my will power. And alas, that was only the first of many goals I had set for myself that very same year that were doomed to fail in a matter of weeks.

Now as I look back on those days in 2018, I can’t say that I have any of those same goals anymore but one; take one deep breath. Sounds easy enough, right? While it is the one goal that I have always maintained without failing, it is extremely hard to breathe when you feel like you're drowning.

I am not the only one and will certainly not be the last person to say that I have struggled with my mental health. And with a year like 2020 times were tough, not just for me but also the entire world. But I guess the one good thing about a worldwide pandemic is that it certainly puts things in perspective. In the times I was in lockdown and social distancing it enlightened me to look at things from a new angle. I want to say it was a sudden epiphany that hit me while mediating or doing yoga or something spiritually profound, but that would just be an outright lie. The truth is that in those dark moments it took a long time for me to finally find a flicker of light that gave me back something I thought I’d lost; hope. It was gradual but I finally came to the realisation that my wellbeing mattered. You'd think it would be obvious, but it wasn't to me.

So, in this New Year of 2021 I have made three resolutions for myself that unlike many years before will have to succeed because I refuse with every fibre of my being to let fail.

The first: eat less junk food.

A cliché, I know, but it’s still just as valid. I am a person that often turns to food for comfort from stress, but unfortunately I am also someone whom has always struggled to have a positive outlook on my body and appearance. And so because of this between my diet and my body have always clashed. I have tried to cut out junk food before and that has never worked. And so this time I came up with a compromise to only eat less. This is because I’m also using this goal to try and channel my stress eating into something productive and ideally less harmful for my cholesterol.

The second: drink more water.

It’s simple, but I know that I like many other people don’t drink enough water. I happened to be biting my lips a little upon a small habit when I realised I forgot what it was like to have a smooth lip, one without peeling or cracks. And so I have that I need to drink at least four cups worth of water by midday every day. I recently have been using an old drink bottle I found that can hold the equivalent of 1.5 litres of liquid, so I can say that by using that again has helped me keep on top of this goal. Staying hydrated is important after all.

This brings me to my third and final New Year’s resolution. This is the one goal that is most important to me.

The third is to make sure I smile at least once a day.

You would think that sounds easy enough, but I what I mean is that kind of uncontrollable smile that twitches at the side of your lips which leaves you feeling incredibly warm.

This is one goal I know can be done through watching the latest meme edits or playing a video game or even just by calling a friend or eating a good meal. These all seem like everyday kind of things, but I guess that would be the point of it.

Something that I have finally managed to teach myself is that one’s happiness doesn’t need to have to be what’s viewed as a ‘good’ reason. Smiling doesn’t have to only be brought by human connection. Phrasing it like that makes it sound a little strange, I know, but it’s the truth. Happiness doesn’t exclusively need to come from family and friends to be morally valid. It can also be by being completely drawn into a new TV show or even absorbed into the gameplay of a good video game.

I was brought up where people around me would judge others for finding happiness in material things because there’s more that matters in the world. But how is saying that fair? If someone, especially someone that struggles to be happy, can get a genuine smile out of something like a TV show or film, who are they to be judged?

Regardless, thus far I am happy to report that I have not failed a single one of these goals into this year so far. One small step at a time I am walking into 2021 with a smile on my face.

After all these years of spiralling into the uncertainty of what the future will bring, I know that even after this year is done and when I need to slow down that I will do what I have always done.

I will take one deep breath and carry on.