Tag: New Year’s Resolutions

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

New Year, Same Me?

Any day is a good day to start anew. (Photo: Behnam Norouzi | Unsplash)

Happy New Year, all, and welcome to 2023! Did y’all eat your black-eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day? I made a big pot of collards and cabbage, a pan of cornbread, and a pile of peas in hopes of ushering in some luck and money, although when I think back on literally every other year I’ve done this as an adult, I can’t recall any particular instance where it might have made a measurable difference. “Remember that one time I won $10 on a scratch-off? Had to be those peas!” said no one, ever.

Regardless, each year will have its highs and lows, and luck — good or otherwise. I’m not so sure how much a plate of food will alter that. This go-round, I even followed the “don’t do laundry on January 1st” rule, although I read somewhere a few days ago that it’s actually supposed to be the last Friday of the previous year and the first Friday of the new year that are avoided. Oops, I guess. Will someone I love die because I washed my clothes on the wrong day? Gosh, I hope not. What happens if I don’t eat my greens on the right day? To me, all these superstitions merely add to the stresses and expectations we place on ourselves when we turn the page on our calendars.

“New year, new me!” people proclaim. There’s nothing wrong with setting resolutions and fixing your sights on goals. In fact, data exists to explain why it’s healthy to do so. A quick search shows that, among other things, reflecting on the prior year and aiming for changes and/or planning to drop bad habits and create good ones gives us inspiration, hope, and a sense of responsibility as we face our next rotation around the sun. But I think it’s important to be realistic and honest with ourselves — and not to burden our brains with all the things we think we’ve been doing “wrong” in the last year or so.

In this first issue back after the holiday break, we’ve always done some variation of a “New Year, New Me” cover story — wherein we ponder ways in which we can better ourselves with physical activity, staying hydrated, reading more, drinking less, putting down our cell phones, discarding clutter, all that stuff we say we’re gonna do but often abandon after the first week or two. This time, our staff put a little less emphasis on the “new me” part and focused on ways in which we can more fully embrace our city — by further exploring interests, picking up new hobbies (or dusting off old ones), or stepping a little outside of our comfort zones (or living rooms or favorite bars or zip codes) — and discover parts of Memphis we may not have known existed. And perhaps in the process uncover parts of ourselves that have been hidden or dormant, to reinvigorate and renew our lives in ways large or small.

Now that we’re past the holiday pressures — to buy this, do that, go there — let’s resolve to ease into whatever it is we want to achieve in 2023. (A study done by the University of Scranton says only 8 percent of folks follow through with resolutions anyhow, so why not set the bar a little lower and go up from there?) Of course, I’d like to be in better shape, to lose some of the weight I gained last year, see my friends and family more, etc. But I won’t promise myself that I’ll keep a daily journal or meticulously fill out and follow a weekly planner or count calories at every meal. I will, though, reiterate the suggestion I offered in my last editor’s column of 2022: Be gentle on yourself. Goals are good. Self-discipline is great. But don’t let a lack thereof push you into a state of self-loathing or unrest. Take it one step at a time. There’s no starting gun signaling the beginning of a new race, and there’s no finish line at the end of a certain month. You can be the same “you” you were last year if you want (we actually love you just the way you are). And you can begin anew any day or time you wish.

Categories
Cover Feature News

New Year, Screw You

Illustration: Bryan Rollins

Welcome to the Flyer’s first cover story of 2022.

Traditionally, the first cover story of the year is our “New Year, New You” feature — a collection of small steps to take toward self-improvement. We’ve written about dry January, reading more, getting outdoors, taking up a hobby, learning to meditate or play an instrument or how to do yoga. In short, over the years, we’ve covered a lot of ground with this feature. Last year, buoyed by a vaccine rollout and a naive hopefulness that closing the door on calendar year 2020 would make some sort of difference, we embraced optimism in this space. This year, though, we decided to focus on what we’d like to leave in the past.

So instead of hopefully embracing a new hobby, we’re kicking bad habits to the curb this year. We’re saying “screw you” to everything we don’t want to carry into the new year. If you, too, are feeling a Marie Kondo-esque urge to simplify your life, let this list of bad habits, addictions, and annoyances be your guide.

Leave Your Comfort Zone

My new life coach is Luca Paguro, the Italian child/sea monster star of the film Luca.

Last year, the world watched as Luca swam, crawled, walked, biked, and fell outside of his comfort zone. It wasn’t easy. If it were, Disney probably would not have made a movie out of it.

Luca is a hardworking, responsible sea monster child. He listens to his parents and does his chores without complaint. Still though, he’s curious about the world above the water, the one place he’s not allowed to go or even talk about. Like Reba McEntire before him, Luca wondered, “Is there life out there?” If so, how did he fit into it? Did he at all?

He drags himself to the edge of his comfort zone but can’t quite stick his head out of the water. He’s yanked out of it all by Alberto Scorfano, another sea monster child who’d become Luca’s friend and out-of-the-water mentor.

Alberto teaches Luca to walk, and that ain’t easy for someone who’s only swum his entire life. Luca fails and fails again but eventually (and awkwardly) finds his footing. That’s where Luca’s magical journey begins.

That’s really where all magical journeys begin — outside of the comfort zone. Yours. Mine. Everyone’s. Nothing new happens inside your old routines and habits. So, if you want change this year, you have to — have to — do something different.

Do you want to start a YouTube channel? Want to travel? Want to write? Want to lose weight? Want to play piano? Want to cook? Want to garden? Want to get a better job? Want to save money?

Every single one of these journeys begins at the same place, that spot right outside your comfort zone. It’s going to feel weird and probably not great in the beginning. That’s how you know it’s working.

If Luca had stayed inside his comfort zone, he wouldn’t have met new friends, ridden a bike, played soccer, tasted ice cream, eaten pasta, climbed a tree, ridden a Vespa, ridden a train, fallen in love with learning, gone to school, or won the Portorosso Cup (spoilers, sorry).

Be like Luca this year and leave behind your comfort zone. — Toby Sells

Screw the Screens

If you picked up this issue of the Flyer from a newsstand and are reading it in all its ink-on-paper glory, I salute you. Too few these days remove their eyes from digital devices often enough to read things in print. To be fair, I’m equally pleased with those of you visiting this article via our website — we know that’s how many folks consume information, and we’re happy to have you stumble upon memphisflyer.com to read this online. My desire to leave obsessive screen time behind in the new year has more to do with mental and physical health, and the ways in which we interact.

Did that status update receive any new likes in the past 20 minutes? Did I get a new email? Is there a text message I need to respond to right away? It seems, especially after enduring varying levels of isolation throughout the pandemic, I’ve spent the majority of my time shifting through screens — laptop for several hours of the work day, phone while doomscrolling social media in the evenings, occasionally switching to the iPad to play some time-wasting game, television to binge-watch the newest season of That Show Everyone Is Talking About.

Not only does it create a sort of time warp (is it really already 11 p.m.?), but it steals from us precious hours we could spend outside in nature, visiting friends or family, crafting, creating art, turning the pages of an actual book, pursuing our passions, learning, growing. Too much screen time is believed to increase anxiety, contribute to short attention spans, and can make it more difficult to fall asleep. In 2022, I hope to avert my eyes more often — put away the screens and be present in the real, tangible world. — Shara Clark

Leave the Grind Behind

There was a time when reading the above section headline would have made me roll my eyes right into the back of my skull. “Leave the grind behind? That’s fine for you, Mr. Moneybags, but some of us have to grind to survive,” I would have thought.

If you have a similar response, I get it. For some people, the “grind” is the only way to keep the lights on and food on the table. Heck, I started working when I was too young to legally clock in, getting paid “under the table” to fetch and carry young orange trees at a plant nursery, and I continued that workaholic trend, holding down two jobs for most of my life so far.

That said, many young Americans have internalized the belief that everyone needs a main hustle, a side hustle, and some kind of monetized hobby at minimum. So for me, saying “screw the grind” doesn’t mean quitting doing the work necessary to survive. It means that I don’t have to say “yes” to every odd job and freelance gig that comes my way. For years, I worked at the Flyer, at another business on nights and weekends, played (usually paying) gigs, and took on whatever landscaping, yard work, house-sitting, pet-sitting, and freelance writing or editing gigs came my way. I felt, as Bilbo Baggins tells Gandalf, “like butter scraped over too much bread.”

Because the grind is what brought me here, I won’t hate on it, but I’ve come to realize that it’s not something to be prized in and of itself. It’s a means to an end, or a necessity of circumstance, not a personal identity, no matter how good it feels to be needed.

So if you’re feeling like Bilbo’s butter, I hope you can find time to take a breath. I hope you can make more room for yourself in your life and can step out from the shadow of your job or jobs. There’s more to you than your career or passion project. — Jesse Davis

Get Over Yourselves

Every year around the time when the numbers on the calendar tick up by one, we are called on to find ways to improve ourselves. Increasing our self-esteem, we are told, is the way toward happiness and greater productivity.

Well, look around you. Is it working? We’ve been gassing ourselves up for years now. Is the world a better place because we have better opinions of ourselves? Quite the opposite. Look no further than the damned pandemic — and really, can you look at anything else? There’s a whole generation of people with so much confidence in the innate superiority of their immune systems that they think they don’t need a vaccine — which, make no mistake, is an actual miracle of science — to help them avoid the deadliest disease in a century. How’s that working out for them? Badly. But they don’t care because to care would mean acknowledging the fact that they are not all that.

Instead, we should all get over ourselves. Accept the truth that you are a mistake arising from a mishap built on top of an oops. On the cosmic level, your imagination is not adequate to conceive of your insignificance. Nothing has any meaning except what you imbue in it.

Does this sound bleak and horrifying? It’s actually liberating. That racist who thinks the color of his skin makes him better than you? Who cares what he thinks? He comes from the same genetic slop pond as the rest of us. Stressed about the big deadline coming up at work? Relax! Your work will crumble into dust long before the sun expands and reduces the Earth to a cinder. Unlucky in love? Look at all those miserable married people, then redefine “luck.”

When we all accept that we are garbage, maybe we can make our dumpster more livable. In the immortal words of Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, “This don’t matter. None of this matters.” — Chris McCoy

Screw You, Musical Tribalism!

We all know the smug certainty of those who proudly refuse to “get” a whole genre of music or dismiss you for not knowing certain groups. These people, real or imagined, often live rent free in our heads. Like a High Fidelity character in overdrive, it’s that guy who “only likes the Ramones,” or can’t believe you’ve never heard so-and-so. I even embody that to some. “Oh, you know, I’m not hip like you.” If they only knew!

But, as Tower of Power once asked (“Oh no, not funk!” I hear someone exclaim), “What is hip?” The proliferation of the hipster stereotype in today’s culture is really just a marker of the bewildering plethora of music now available. None of us can keep up with it. Yet these imaginary, bearded oracles supposedly can.

The blunt reality is, no one can. You don’t need to wear your records like a badge, and no one cares about your pure aesthetic. Contrary to lay opinion, there is no Memphis version of High Fidelity. Some from the suburbs often confess an insecurity about browsing this city’s brilliant record shops, and the first thing I tell them is: That smugness is illusory. That clerk behind the counter? I happen to know she digs free jazz, rap, old country, punk, and funk. And on rainy nights, maybe even a little classical. Give up your FOMO and move on. Crates of undiscovered records stand before you: Get to digging! — Alex Greene

Screw Fear of Covid

Yes, I know, the OmiGOD! variant is sweeping the country, making more people sick than ever before. But you know what? If you’re vaxxed and boosted and get it, your odds of being hospitalized are next to zero. You probably won’t even get very sick, if at all. Yes, the number of infections is way up, but the number of deaths is way down. With very rare exceptions, Omicron is not killing vaccinated people. So be one of those people.

This is not March 2020, when we had no medicines, no vaccines, and no real knowledge of how to fight Covid. Those days are gone. We now have incredibly effective vaccines available to keep us from getting Covid, and new meds and treatments to fight the disease, if we do catch it. And we have a president who believes in following the medical science instead of recommending bleach, hydroxychloroquine, horse meds, and magical thinking in a nightly dog-and-pony show.

“The hiding-in-our-basement-behind-the-pile-of-sandbags moment has come and gone,” says Andrew Noymer, associate professor of population health and disease prevention at the University of California at Irvine. “If the rationale is that there’s Covid outside the door, well we’re going to be hiding in our basement forever, because there’s going to be Covid next year, and the year after that.”

Exactly. Predictions are that a wave of Omicron is about to sweep the country, but we know what to do: Make sure you’re vaccinated and boosted, mask up in public spaces, and avoid large gatherings when a wave is passing through. But we also need to recognize that Covid is becoming endemic, meaning that it’s likely to become a recurring disease, like the flu or a cold, and — except for the very elderly, the immunocompromised, and the ideologically stupid — the rest of us are going to have to learn to stop being so afraid of it. — Bruce VanWyngarden

Quitting Coffee (Well … Kind Of)

Since my routine was to drink about three or four cups of coffee before I even got in the shower each morning, I thought maybe I’d place less emphasis on coffee this year.

The first thing I do in the morning is make a pot of coffee in my electric stainless steel percolator.

The last thing I do before I go to bed is clean my electric stainless steel percolator.

If there are just four cans of Chock Full o’ Nuts on the shelf at the grocery store, I buy all four — just in case they won’t have any the next time I need it.

I asked for — and got — a stainless steel stove-top percolator for Christmas. No electricity needed. So, if the power goes out, I can still make coffee on my gas stove. Providing I have water.

I was at a dinner party around the holidays and one of the hosts knew I would select the coffee-flavored gelato from the selection of gelati during dessert. They know.

I have come a long way since the time I used to buy a cup of coffee every night on the way home from work. A large cup. But since we’ve mostly been working from home, I drink my own coffee at night at home.

For the past few days I’ve been limiting my coffee to four cups in the morning. I look forward to each one instead of slamming them down. I admit, I do wake up faster when I slam them down. I seem to move faster and get more things done.

So, I’ve just about finished my fourth cup of coffee today. I’m done. But maybe I’ll have one more cup because this is the first day back at work since my vacation. And because there’s snow on the ground. But maybe I won’t. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. — Michael Donahue

Resolved: De-Politicize the Virus

The oddest bit of news from the year just passed was the report that Donald Trump confided to a crowd of his friendlies that he’d had a booster shot — and was booed! Have we not been accustomed to believing that anything the Donald emotes is gospel to his minions? In fact, is it not part of our own catechism, we of the non-Trumpist majority, to draw connections between the former president’s actions in office (or lack of them) and the spread of the seemingly endless coronavirus malaise? So what’s up here?

It’s worse than we thought. Not only has political factionalism intruded into matters of health and wellness — a problem that is, in theory, correctable — but the disbelief in reality has become an illness more lethal and intractable than the troublesome Covid-19 spores themselves, and one wholly beyond the borders of ideology. Quick fact-check: Who is more antagonistic toward the principle of vaccination, Robert Kennedy Jr. of the sainted Democratic clan or the recently deposed ex-president? The answer is the former. Upon occasion, Trump has actually been heard to take credit for the quick emergence of vaccines, via Operation Warp Speed.

The fact is that common sense, even in matters of survival, is in short supply. People smoke, they drink too much, they drive too fast, they burn fossil fuels because, in the short run, it seems inconvenient to them not to. The Republican Party, by and large, has weighed in against mandates for masks because it is now, and always has been, easy to score political points against an abrupt call for hard discipline. People resist having to take cold showers.

If there is a high side to the current ubiquity and rapid spread of the Omicron variant, it is that at some point, a truly common peril becomes undeniable. One way or another, everybody “gets it.” And the virus becomes so universal as to erode all these self-serving political barriers. While we still can, let us make it a firm resolution to hasten agreement on the point. — Jackson Baker

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

2020 Resolutions: It Doesn’t Matter What Month You Start

CREDIT: Mikalai Bachkou | Dreamstime.com

In January 2019, I started writing in a red spiral notebook. I’m not much of a journal person, but apparently in January 2019 I must have thought a last-minute Walgreens notebook purchase would make me one. I wrote nine entries that month, and like many of my past attempts to be someone who journals, I left my notebook with many, many more untouched pages.

This time last year, like many folks, I made a list of things I wanted to do to better myself. I wanted to include healthier habits in my life, like writing daily, being outside more, getting up early to exercise, learning a new language, and reading a new book every week. Today, I can’t say I fully checked off all of those goals. I read books, but not 52. I exercised, but I blame the sporadic, cold Memphis weather and the fear of street harassment and cat-calling for not running outside consistently. Je ne something parle français.

It wasn’t that the goals individually were asking a lot from me. In fact, many were pretty reasonable. For example, another goal was to drink more water. I’d say that’s a pretty low-bar ask of myself. The mistake I made was that I was trying to do too much at once. I was stacking up so many things at the beginning of the year that by the end of the first month, I had forgotten most. The timeline I set up was not reasonable for me. With all the things I was juggling then, I could have probably found time to read one leisure book a month. One a week was nearly impossible with my work schedule.

I was exhausted by the end of the day, and I felt worse knowing that I hadn’t read through 30 pages of a book. I would even talk myself out of it. I’d think, I didn’t hit 30 pages today, tomorrow I have the same schedule so it’s probably not going to be different. As someone who sets really high personal expectations, the number of daily goals I laid out for myself was stressing me out. No one was forcing me to do this. I wasn’t being evaluated for my progress. What began as simply making goals to better my health was actually steadily doing the opposite.

For someone else, these goals may be a walk in the park. This may also already be a part of someone’s daily routine. It just didn’t work for me. It was too much. I never paused to think about how these goals aren’t fixed and that I could actually shift them since I was the one who set them. I was overwhelmed with getting through a day of work, resting, and then getting through the next, and I kept pushing my goals back further until February when I dropped them altogether.

Mikalai Bachkou | Dreamstime.com

Baby stepping to a better you.

That second month, I threw my list out except for one goal: exercise. My roommate was walking to the gym in the morning anyway, and doing one goal with a buddy, and accountability, helped me keep my goal as a habit. By going to the gym, I inevitably got into the habit of drinking more water. In March, I wanted to learn to skateboard, which many people around me advised against since I’m not a 13-year-old with time to heal any broken bones and, well, health care is expensive. Despite all warnings, I began skateboarding to the gym because I convinced myself that skateboarding would get me there quicker, meaning I could sleep in for a few more minutes. At first, my logic wasn’t sound, as I could barely stay on the board for more than a few seconds, but in time, I was knocking out three goals: exercising, being outside, and drinking water. Four weeks into my skateboarding journey, I actually did fall and break my foot, but now I know more about my body and can name my metatarsal bones. Win, win.

So, this new year, my advice is to hold off on those goals until February. If you do make goals in January, make your list, but give yourself the space to realistically do three, or at least start out at three and then add on. Besides, time is what we make of it, so who’s to say you can’t set up or add resolutions on the second week of March? Any new week or new day can be our time to make small, steady changes in our lives.

Aylen Mercado is a brown, queer, Latinx chingona and Memphian exploring race and ethnicity in the changing South.

Categories
News News Feature

If It Makes You Happy …

I had one resolution for 2014: Do more of what makes you happy.

Beautiful in its simplicity, this resolution was at least 10 years in the making.

The problem: I was addicted to doing, accomplishing, achieving. My drug of choice: to-do lists. They were a tangible way to show progress — and I was a list addict.

Lists for work were on legal notepads: Call sources for a story; write 300 words by 2 p.m. Lists for home were written in blue ink on sheets of plain printer paper folded in half. I have been known to stop in the middle of wrangling a fitted sheet into submission to add “fold laundry” to the list, simply for the thrill of crossing it off later.

There’s psychology behind the (false) sense of control obsessive list makers derive from sifting their world into bulleted items. And there’s an entire personal productivity industry such as David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” system or one of my favorites, the pomodoro technique of timed productivity sessions.

In my 30s, I took the obsession to a new level, with lists of goals that, once accomplished, would signal my arrival in responsible adulthood. Or so I thought. On my list of “30 things to do before you turn 31”: Read one of the great classics each month (I started — and stopped — with Anna Karenina); purge the attic of 20-year-old newspaper clips from my days as a cub cops reporter in Indianapolis; master several new dishes to wow dinner guests.

But each year, when my birthday rolled around, I could only cross out a few goals. The rest were recycled for the next year, but as I approached 40, the list had no power to motivate. Instead, the sight of the lists was depressing. I saw it as a testament of my inability to GROW THE HELL UP AND DO MATURE GROWN PEOPLE STUFF.

And then, everything changed with the birth of my (first and only) niece two and a half years ago. I didn’t know you could love someone so completely that it terrified you. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to spend hours playing peek-a-boo or letting her do stuff her mother wouldn’t, like liberate Kleenex from the tissue box, one by one.

What I wanted to do and what I thought I had to do were in constant conflict. Adding “perform Itsy Bitsy Spider ad nauseum” to my fastidious list felt indulgent. Would it be the first step on the road to slovenly loserville?

My “aha” moment came in a most 21st-century way: via Pinterest, where the inspirational quotes serve as a lazy woman’s version of Sunday mornings with Joel Osteen or Oprah’s “Live Your Best Life” tent meetings.

On this particular saying, there was no attribution. It wasn’t plastered over a treacly blue-sky background. Just seven words in a typewriter font: Do more of what makes you happy.

It was permission to make a new to-do list with just one item. I would do less of what I thought it was that adults did — tasks that were usually mundane and joyless. Instead, I would spend my time and energy with people I enjoy and on experiences that feed my soul.

Following this one rule meant that I knitted more. Nothing fancy, but my hands like the rhythm and the immediate (although poorly shaped and usually unwearable) results. I perfected a pound cake. I put years of childhood piano lessons to use and played classical music (poorly). I took my mother to Montreal and splurged on floor seats to a Cirque du Soleil show.

Sometimes being happy costs money, like when I went hiking in the Amazon with my cousin, my brother, and his girlfriend. But more often than not, happiness is free, such as karaoke night at my parents’ house. Listening to my Jamaican-born mother belt out the “Banana Boat Song” — it doesn’t get much better (or funnier) than that.

Or a recent afternoon with my darling niece. She’s in the pretend-play phase, which means she serves dinner in an overturned tambourine with a maraca-turned-spoon. On this day, we were playing bedtime. A book was my pillow, and she neglected to give me a blanket, but she told me “Sweet dreams!” as we settled onto the carpet.

Not 30 seconds later, my niece touched me on my shoulder to wake me. I opened my eyes. Her smiling face was just inches from mine. “Good morning, sunshine!” she said in her sweet, singsong voice. Before she dished oatmeal from a stacking toy cup, my niece asked, “Auntie Wendi, do you need a bib?”

That is happiness.

So for 2015, I have just one resolution: Do even more of what makes me happy.