How to love the New Year is a Big Idea
How to love the new year is a big concept. The best way to grasp and understand big ideas is to break them down into smaller components. I’ve recently taken it upon myself to learn how to life better. Meaning going back over what I thought I understood about life, deconstructing, and reanalyzing my approach to everything. It was a personal disaster that had pushed me to this. Therefore I’m hoping to encourage and inspire people to strive for change before they find themselves in a deep rut.
Some people don’t need a giant disaster to make them seek improvement. Most people simply need another year to roll around before they chalk up the infamous New Year’s Resolutions. Because statistics involving New Year’s Resolutions are rather depressing, I haven’t made one in years. That makes me a new year’s resolution Scrooge, this year I asked myself “Does this make me a Squidward?” I want to change, but doesn’t that start with believing change is possible?
Believing you can change is like your dreams, goals, and ambitions. If envision it in your mind before it happens, how could you convince anyone else to? The very school I worked at started off as a crazy idea to build a school in the Japanese mountains. My crazy idea of building a company called Laidback Lifestyle, go to art school, and then proceeding to build a game/app called TougeLegends documenting my story as I go is simply a dream as of now. It’s a dream I can maybe accomplish. Conversely, with my current habits, there is no way I’ll achieve that dream. Change is necessary.
What is the better story?
“So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer?”
Yann Martel
Perhaps believing in change and visualizing your dreams isn’t enough. But which is the better philosophy to live a life with? Before I would laugh at something so cliche as New Year New Me, but science actually affirms this. The cells that compose your body cycle over depending on what part of the body they are. Some cells you only get once per life so this is similar to the point I’m getting across. You are still you in some ways, but also different in others. It’s the beautiful balancing process of Yin & Yang.
Learning How to Love the New Year Starts With Loving The New Day
As stated before a year is a long chunk of time, but the longer you stay alive the faster they go. When I had the disposable income to work with a therapist we worked on making a mantra that I would say every morning in the mirror.
You are enough, you create your own reality, and you’re cute 😛
Marco’s Daily Mantra
Large-scale change starts with looking at that Man in the Mirror. While looking at that reflection it’s important to love what you are in that moment keeping in mind that you’re not even a fraction of what you could be. It sounds depressing, but I think it’s an inspiring message. Jordan Peterson also believes that knowing all the areas you could improve in your life can give you hope. There are two ways of seeing it. This reminds me of the two perspectives that you can have when looking at people who have more experience than you. My friend Crispy and I were talking about Pro smash players. . .and I’m still going to lean on being jealous of a pro gamer, but his response was really insightful.
When I see pros play, I see how much room I have to grow
Crispy
So I’ll look into the mirror and take that approach with me into life. Not only is the glass half full, but look how much more water we can put in it. It’s not about improving and loving something so large as a year, it’s about waking up and loving every day. Hell, you’re not guaranteed a year, Ken Block recently passed away recently due to an accident. A daily mantra might sound corny, but I’ll keep saying it until they invent cyborg cat girl bodies and the last part becomes true 🤣.
Feel
My most recent revaluation of life started late last year. Due to soul searching, or in my case soul soothing I picked up my guitar and started something I call String Therapy with my coworker Eric. Eric recommended a book called Zen Guitar which has been nothing but a positive influence on my life. Helping me with may zanpakto(weeb bleach speak for guitar) and my life.
Recently I’ve read the short chapter dedicated to the importance of feeling the music. Feel isn’t predicated on the technique of knowing what notes to hit or techniques to use. Conversely, it’s dedicated to something more ethereal, what the soul and emotion want to play. If you’re wondering How You can love the new year, one step you could take is filling a couple of days doing things you love doing.
I spent four days having a terrible sleep schedule, playing competitive Apex Legends, and getting lost in post-apocalyptic Ukraine via the Game STALKER: Call of Chornobyl. This sounds completely counterproductive to the whole resolution/self-improvement section because it is. That’s what holidays are for, to take your foot off the gas and relax. Because even racing and drifting sometimes require you to take your foot of the accelerator. So binge-watch HBO specials on Nuclear disasters or get lost in other worlds, what you see might inspire what you create later in life.
How to Love the New Year When It’s not Perfect
I don’t think you can ever do your best. Doing your best is a process of trying to do your best.
Townes Van Zandt
In competitive Apex, Guitar, Art, or Life we’ll never be perfect. The point of training and improvement is to strive for it at least. I’m trying to structure my life and off time to things that would help me get to my chosen destination. In other words, I’m trying to build the ideal day, or play the game of life perfectly. Gamers and Asmongold call this Min/Maxing. Last month I started to build on the core aspects of my personality. I created blogs, youtube videos, and songs, and made time to work on some art pieces. I’m trying to practice balancing my life more effectively.
While gaming can be a part of my life, even gaming content creators need time for other actions. As you practice skills things should become a habit, and then your brain takes over. I’m hoping that throughout next year I’ll be less awkward on camera and better able to create content without mentally putting the process together each time.
Mistakes
The coming year won’t be perfect. We’ll all make mistakes, making mistakes early in life is probably the better thing. Because as long as you love yourself for your effort, see where you can improve, and learn and experiment with your mistakes all the years that follow will be better as a result. I’m just going to paste this part of Zen Guitar Below as it’s really short, and he has written it better than I could have.
