It’s about this time of year when one’s New Year resolutions tend to have worn so thin that breakage, if it hasn’t already happened, is a foregone conclusion.
The mornings are dark, the evenings are dark, and our motivation remains snuggled in bed with the cats (who were smart enough to secure a free and comfortable ride through life) while our physical bodies are trudging off to work.
And, believe it or not, there is actually a scientific explanation for this. Well, kinda. Cliff Arnal, a former professor at Cardiff University in the UK, has developed a formula that calculates the saddest and most depressing day of the year. In 2013, that day was Monday, Jan. 21. So if you’re reading this, congratulations, you survived. According to Arnal, Monday was the perfect storm of everything rotten in post-Christmas blahs: weather, motivation, debt worry, etc. To get us out of this funk, Monday talked to author Gabrielle Bernstein (who is a guest speaker at the upcoming Victoria Yoga Conference) about manifesting your own miracles. You can read her interview on Page 7.
And for those who are clinging onto their resolutions by the edge of their fingernails, I hereby present a wee poem I wrote recently that helped motivate my cousin in his quest to shed over 100 pounds and enter his very first marathon.
Last to Finish
When you are last to finish
have you failed?
Not last place,
for that is reserved for those who
gave up,
dropped out,
decided it was just too hard.
Last to finish is the
slowest,
or the oldest,
or the one whose intelligence
is taxed the most,
but also the one who
didn’t give up,
despite the obstacles,
despite the odds,
who broke through the wall
of physical pain,
of intellectual struggle,
of breath
caught in burning lungs,
of whispers of doubt
burning into every thought,
repeating how easy
it is to give up.
Last to finish is not losing,
not even close.
It is overcoming,
it is stubbornness and
perseverance,
it is sweat and pain and suffering.
It is defeating the voices
that say you can’t.
It is replacing them with
words of your own making:
I bloody well did. M