new year, same you (hopeful)

cannot believe it's already 2024

Amanda Chung / lucky risograph

Remember when we used to write dates down on paper and the new year meant putting the wrong year on everything? What were we even writing down? Checks? Journal entries?

Can people change? Or is it all the same as it ever was?

Both, of course, you silly goose. We change like we always have, forgetting that we can. The tide waxes, the moon wanes, and the snake sheds its skin — what’s old is new, but what’s new with you?

Me, I’m reading The Four Agreements. The first agreement, which the author Don Miguel Ruiz says is the most important one by far, is “be impeccable with your word.”

We were talking about it last night at dinner. “I’m terrible at that,” I told Lauren, “always saying stuff I don’t end up doing, being late.”

This, she tried explaining to me, wasn’t really what it meant. But I didn’t listen because I was and, in this new year, continue to be, an idiot.

According to the book, being impeccable with your word means acting and believing that you are good and loved. The word is the truth, and the truth is simple: you’re a good little guy, lovable, whole, regardless of...everything.

The word is magic and being impeccable means harnessing its awesome power correctly.

Still lost? Same! Basically I think he means speaking and thinking from a place of love. Love for yourself first, then love for others, because that’s the fundamental truth of things.

Which means that every time you speak against yourself, you cast a dark curse spell on yourself. I do that all the time, like just now when saying that about myself.

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This morning I woke up with Emma June and realized I hadn’t grabbed the iPad from the living room earlier so she could watch Gabbycat. For this error I said to myself, in my brain, “God, you piece of shit.”

Which I really did say. I clocked it in my head and then thought, man, that’s not good. That’s being “peccable” with my word, which according to the book, is Latin for “sin.”

Makes sense - my two pecs are absolute sins given how powerful they are. You guys should see me bench 155lb eight times, baby. All natural. No roids at all there in case anyone was wondering.

But that little “God you piece of shit” whisper is a dark spell I cast on myself, again and again, until it gets loud and proud and makes me rage with the fire of self-hatred: how could I be this way. No one cares. I’m a failure and no matter how hard I try, I’ll always suck.

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Audre Lorde wrote something that feels like the counter-spell:

“Nothing I accept about myself can be used to diminish me.”

When you speak truth about yourself—real acceptance—the words lose their power to curse you. You take back the magic.

I used to think people can’t change. I still do, but maybe what we can’t change is our ability to change. Maybe change is the fundamental word, and acceptance is the move.

But what happens when I get angry and bitter and livid? I don’t know, but Joe Hudson on his podcast says acceptance is everything. Let it all in like you would your own child. See it inside of love, the only word that’s true.

A few years ago I wrote in my journal that I felt stuck in “awareness without acceptance.”

I’m still there, but less often. Acceptance creeps in, like a sliver of hope, delivered in the dark of night to remind me that I know more than I let on.

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I’ve been thinking about year in review posts. Everyone’s doing them. Here’s what I learned, here’s what I accomplished, here’s my word for the year. Yuck.

Forget resolutions. That word — re-solution — implies we need solutions. But what if there weren’t any problems? What if, as Carl Rogers says, the only way to change is by first accepting yourself exactly as you are?

Or as Shunryu Suzuki put it: “Each of you is perfect the way you are... and you could use a little improvement.”

Both. Always both.

Maybe the most impeccable thing you can say about a year is this:

If you’re alive, you did it.

That’s the whole review.

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So. New year. Same me. Awareness and acceptance when I can muster it, love and grace when I can’t, remembering always that I’m a good little guy, lovable, whole, regardless of everything.

The tide wanes, the moon waxes, a snake that eats itself only to realize it was just eating its old skin. Shedded. Shredded. Peccable as hell.

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

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i love y’all - come say hi in the comments

Where are you at as we kick off 2024?