Today as I was scrolling through Tumblr looking for links to 'Sherlock' livestreams, since most ironically I am back in California without access to BBC One, I came across a post by Neil Gaiman wishing people a happy new year. He also said, 'be gentle to each other.' I was going to nudge past it, since holiday greetings aren't really my thing even if they're coming from my favorite contemporary author, but I had a bit of an epiphany.
Now, I have sudden realizations all the time. It's a thing I do, for better or worse. But quite out of the ether, I thought, 'There-- that's my resolution.' When, mostly, I hate new year's resolutions because we humans are so stupid and could easily have Friday resolutions or Halloween resolutions and they could be very individual, meaningful practices that way, but somehow most of us wait until the start of the calendar year to think about self-improvement. Generally of the physical and aesthetic variety, too, and it's so marketable to air a ton of gym membership and diet food advertisements on December 31st.
I have decided literally in the last ten minutes that I want to be gentler this year. Gentler with myself, in particular. I have quite the problem with that quality... in that I don't possess it. I'm always discontented with myself, the quality of my work, the way I work, how I present it. I think this has helped push me to the top of what I do and it has gotten me to some very wonderful places, but it also isn't very healthy sometimes.
And we can't confuse gentleness with weakness. Being gentle is not weak. It's actually one of the hardest things to be consistently.
Thanks, Mr. Gaiman-- and happy new year to everybody.
Now, I have sudden realizations all the time. It's a thing I do, for better or worse. But quite out of the ether, I thought, 'There-- that's my resolution.' When, mostly, I hate new year's resolutions because we humans are so stupid and could easily have Friday resolutions or Halloween resolutions and they could be very individual, meaningful practices that way, but somehow most of us wait until the start of the calendar year to think about self-improvement. Generally of the physical and aesthetic variety, too, and it's so marketable to air a ton of gym membership and diet food advertisements on December 31st.
I have decided literally in the last ten minutes that I want to be gentler this year. Gentler with myself, in particular. I have quite the problem with that quality... in that I don't possess it. I'm always discontented with myself, the quality of my work, the way I work, how I present it. I think this has helped push me to the top of what I do and it has gotten me to some very wonderful places, but it also isn't very healthy sometimes.
And we can't confuse gentleness with weakness. Being gentle is not weak. It's actually one of the hardest things to be consistently.
Thanks, Mr. Gaiman-- and happy new year to everybody.
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