Impossible Expectations

The clock ticks nearer, closer to midnight and closer to ‘the new you!’. It is a horribly common misconception that the moment that hand reaches midnight and it is the start of a new year, you become this completely new person, completely separate from the person you were five seconds ago. 

The logic is due to it being ‘a new year!’ A new year does not mean a clean slate, just because the number at the end of the year changes does not mean your money problems, weight problems or relationship problems suddenly vanish? They are still there, just briefly hidden underneath  all the empty promises and unrealistic goals that you set yourself at the start of a year. 

Fast forward a month into the new year and there is chocolate in your shopping basket, you haven’t stepped foot in the gym yet, your nails have been bitten off and that glimmer of motivation you once had is trickling away like water in cupped hands. 

What people forget is that these things take time, something that is often in short supply nowadays. You can’t just eat salad for a week and expect to see a difference, you need to keep on working at it and don’t get disheartened if things don’t go right first time. However, this is made much harder to do due to the interference of other people, claiming to know better, criticising anything you do and saying that despite your best efforts that you are destined to fail. How is that constructive? How is that helping? 

You may think you love that person, that by saying these things you are helping them? But the reality of it is that your words are self deprecating. She will look at herself and feel like a failure, question the point, if she is destined to fail then why try? And even if she were to succeed, would you be proud? Would you tell her that she is beautiful? Would you tell her she can conquer the world and that she can accomplish anything she sets her mind to? Or would you find another flaw, 

The mind is a delicate thing, and those thoughts that you have embedded in her brain will burrow down and take root, infecting her thoughts spreading like seeds right up until every corner of her mind is covered in dandelions. 

Words are powerful. You never know the damage you could cause. Choose them carefully.