2023: A Shitshow That Was AWESOME

I'm sure I'm not alone here but, frankly, I'm pretty happy to see the end of 2023. I've spent the past several months mired in bullshit, dealing with lawyers and morons and, in one case, it seemed to be both of those things at the same time. There have been sleepless nights, a lot of anger, anxiety and stress. Rubbish year...

But I've seen that Daniel Kahneman TED Talk and know that if an experience ends negatively it can kind of trick us into thinking the whole thing was terrible...

2023 started out brilliantly - I was coming to the end of my MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martin's and was really happy with my work. We spent quality time around the New Year with a friend who died in May. In the spring, I gave a talk at a conference in Finland. In the summer, I graduated from my MA with a Distinction (go me!). While I was dealing with all of the awfulness in the autumn, I finished a book proposal based on work I was doing on my MA. And ended the year deciding to do a podcast with one of my favourite people (yes, I'll tell you about it when it's out). Also- and this is a huge achievement- Brian and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. Woo-hoo! So, it wasn't all bad at all.

Thinking of 'the negative' over 'the positive' is a choice we make. It is a stupid choice. OK, sure, the negativity bias might be an evolutionary adaptation, but it's a dumb one. OKaaaay. It's not totally useless, but if you have got to a place in your life where your first thought about ANYTHING - a film, a person, an ice cream flavour, an entire year- is a negative one OR if you only have a negative thought or a dislike of 'all films by a particular director' even if you haven't seen them all; 'all people from [a group]' whether that grouping is about someone's nationality, ethnic background or their beliefs; 'all strawberry ice cream' yes, even the one I made especially for you over the past couple days, then, well, you're a feeble-minded dick who doesn't know how to think.

So... OK. Wait. Let me start over.

2023 was AWESOME!!!!1!!

Sometimes we are raised in or live in an environment where 'negativity' is rife, where 'being happy' is frowned upon. This is an environment where your successes are ignored, joked about or even condemned if they don't coincide with the other person's/people's interests. You might be told you're being too 'proud' about yourself and you are made very aware that isn't a good thing. Your happiness might be taken as a threat - 'what are you so happy about?!' You might find that your friend, partner or family member only seems to be 'happy' when things are going badly for you- they are only interested in hearing of your defeats and are uninterested or outright hostile when you share your successes. You learn that to keep those people in your life - after all, we all need to feel connected - you should not be too 'positive'.

Sometimes this comes from abuse, but sometimes it can come from a very restricted - perhaps religious or even political - environment; sometimes it comes from jealousy; sometimes other people are just dealing with their own crap and they take it out on you. It doesn't really matter why people around you pushed you into a negative mindset, you ended up there... and you can get yourself out of it.

How do I know this? Because I did it myself.

Starting many, many years ago, I began to notice people in my life who were relentlessly negative. They were in no way dreary 'Neil In The Young Ones' types who moaned constantly, several of them think of themselves as being funny, friendly, caring, kind, empathic even, but fundamentally they view the world through a negative lens. It's as if inside their mind they are 'good' 'superior' 'perfect' and outside everything and everyone is - or eventually will be - seen as 'bad' 'inferior' 'flawed'.

With some people the negativity was more obvious, with others it was harder to recognise, but it took me noticing my own feelings and realising that I just didn't feel great when I was with them before I could see it... but MORE IMPORTANTLY than that, it took me understanding that it's OK to feel great, it's OK to be happy, it's OK to feel proud of something you've done, it's OK to be positive. Over the years, I hadn't been made to feel that any of those things were acceptable. For many people - many of you, I expect - this can be really difficult to understand because perhaps for your whole life you've been surrounded by people who really just don't want the best for you, they want - for their own reasons- to keep you 'below' them and you have adapted to avoid displaying positivity in order to have them like you.

Here's the thing: this is madness.

The first thing you need to do is be honest with yourself. She has been your 'best friend' for 25 years, but why does she ALWAYS bring up that time when you were 15 when you got an award at school for giving the best biology presentation in your year and tease you for being such a swot? You are a 40-year-old adult, are happily married, have a job you're happy with and a little kid... It's a bit weird that you don't want to tell your boyfriend that you've been asked to run a big project at work, isn't it? Isn't it?? You know it is... When you talk to your mum, do you find yourself avoiding telling her about your latest promotion at work because you can anticipate her passive aggressive response: 'well... that must be nice for you...' Did your flatmate tell you one too many times 'actually you look awful in that' right before you were leaving for a date because they were 'just being honest!' so now you lie about where you are going?...

Those of you who are in a situation like this know exactly what I'm talking about. Some of you may only have one person like this in your life, others may be surrounded by them... It's really low level stuff but is often relentless. And your adaptation to it will have happened very slowly, tiny baby steps, so that you don't even realise that you've adapted to it... but you have and so now you find it difficult to speak positively about yourself and maybe you just look for the negative angle in everything.

Even if you adapted to this kind of thing when you were a kid and you're now 60, you can re-adapt your way out of it and get on with being happy to be happy...

1. You need to change your 'inner monologue' (blahblahblah, whatever you call it) to a more positive one. I'm not talking here about things like positive self-talk or affirmation statements or any of that stuff you see online (they probably don't work for a lot of people), I'm talking about noticing your initial negative thought and changing it in order to - eventually - change how you see the world.

Let's say your friend invites you out to go to the cinema with a bunch of others you don't know. They tell you what the film is, which cinema they're going to and maybe the bar they want to go to afterwards. Perhaps you find yourself thinking 'I don't want to meet a bunch of new people. They'll be all exciting and interesting. I'll be too boring for them' or 'Ugh. I hate those Hollywood action films' or 'The people that work at that cinema are always annoyingly happy' or 'That bar is awful' or maybe you think all those things... Instead, after noticing those thoughts, you can say to yourself '...but I can still go and enjoy a night out even if I'm not the most interesting person there' or '... but I like my friend and they like those Hollywood action films, so I'm interested to see if I can work out what they like about them' or '... but the people working at the cinema are just trying to make everyone feel welcome and that's a better way to do it than being miserable' or '... but I don't actually care where I go for a drink with my friend, the point is to go for a drink with my friend'...

2. You need to stop saying negative things about yourself and find something positive to say instead (and then notice how different people react to you). And I don't mean 'make up something positive to say', I mean BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF. Remember, it's OK to be happy and feel good about yourself...

If you got a new haircut and someone at work notices and says something, instead of saying 'Oh, my hair was just getting too long/ratty/hard to manage before so I had to cut it off' say 'Thank you! I love it and think it looks great! My hairdresser is amazing!' If you're talking to your sister on the phone and she asks how your partner is don't say 'Well… we're not having many arguments or anything' say 'Really great, thanks! We just had a brilliant night out last week and had so much fun!' If one of your oldest friends asks how work is going, rather than saying 'Ugh. My boss is an arse as usual' say 'It's going really well. Actually, I'm thinking about asking for a raise'... There will be some people who just won't know how to handle or accept a positive response from you. Notice that.

And if any of those positive responses sound 'bizarre' and nothing like 'you'... then ask yourself why. Why do you think you can't say good things about yourself?

3. Stop fishing for compliments from others by saying negative things about yourself. It's annoying af. Seriously.

If you've done something- whether that is wearing a new dress you look great in or performing a show that you wrote and directed- don't say 'Oh, I feel a bit rubbish about it' hoping that people will say 'NO! You look/were AMAZING!! You're so great! Blahblahblah'. If you feel great in your new dress or are happy with what you've done, own it. Own. It. That's OK. You don't have to pretend to be all humble. It really is fine to be happy with how you look or be proud of something you've done. And if you have people around you who won't let you feel that way... well... think about that a bit...

4. Sure, other people, various experiences and bad luck have contributed to your negative outlook. You've recognised a pattern and that pattern looks like shit. Well done you... Now, dust yourself off and take responsibility for how you feel rather than leaving your life and happiness in the hands of fate and wankers.

The only thing you can control is how you respond to things that life throws at you. Sometimes it's important to feel the bad feelings - it's OK to feel sad when you don't get a job you applied for, it's fine to feel anxious or stressed out when you are waiting for test results, it's totally acceptable to feel angry and insecure when you find out your partner has cheated on you, it's normal to grieve when a friend has died - we shouldn't expect to skip happily through life completely unaffected like an idiot or a psychopath... but when we have chosen to have a negative, angry, cynical or sarcastic response to even the good things in our life, then we really need to rethink wtf we're doing.

A simple way of starting to do this is to change the subject of sentences when you talk about or even think about a situation in your life. Instead of thinking 'He's so self-centred and always ignores me and he makes me feel insecure' - which is keeping the control in 'his' hands - think 'I feel annoyed and insecure when I don’t get enough attention from him'- which is taking ownership and control of your feelings. Do this for everything - even positive experiences, even in the smallest of ways. For example, if you went to see a film with your friends don't say 'That was a great film' instead say 'I really loved that film', it's simply your opinion, after all. Take ownership of it. You might be the only one in your group of friends who liked it. And?

It's important to take responsibility for how you feel and respond... again, it's the ONLY thing you can control in this world. You need to burn new pathways in your brain so that your first thought is that you are running the show that is ‘You’. Put yourself back in charge…

5. Stop thinking that you can make everyone like you. You can't. Get over it.

You don't like everyone, so it follows that not everyone can like you. You can't control what other people think or feel about anything, including how they feel about you. It's fine. The world won't end if someone thinks you're a bit big-headed because you think you look amazing in your new dress or if they're jealous of your happy marriage/interesting job/great group of friends/new raise. Who cares?

One day you will die. Then what? Nothing, that's what... so in the meantime, enjoy yourself. This is the only chance you've got.

Have a good New Year. Start it how you wish to end it: content with yourself, even if you’re in the middle of a total shitshow.