182. New Year, Same Me
- Show Notes
- Transcript
It may be a new year, but you don’t need a new you. That just sounds wasteful!
About It's Going to Be OK
If you have anxiety, depression or any sense of the world around you, you know that not *everything* is going to be okay. In fact, many things aren’t okay and never will be!
But instead of falling into the pit of despair, we’re bringing you a little OK for your day. Every weekday, we’ll bring you one okay thing to help you start, end or endure your day with the opposite of a doom scroll.
Find Nora’s weekly newsletter here! Also, check out Nora on YouTube.
Share your OK thing at 502-388-6529 or by emailing a note or voice memo to [email protected]. Start your message with “I’m (name) and it’s going to be okay.”
“It’s Going To Be OK” is brought to you by The Hartford. The Hartford is a leading insurance provider that connects people and technology for better employee benefits. Learn more at www.thehartford.com/benefits.
The IGTBO team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Marcel Malekebu, Amanda Romani and Grace Barry.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.
INTRO MUSIC
January 1 is a brand-new year.
365 days of possibility lie ahead of us, unlived and therefore unspoiled.
A New Year is like a brand-new notebook, a brand-new phone, a brand-new computer…a brand new carton of yogurt that nobody has taken a spoon to yet.
And as a person who has often been bewitched by the turning of a calendar, who has approached most of her New Years with a slew of resolutions and promises and dreams, who has pummeled herself into many different shapes – none of them comfortable – through the self-improvement industry…I love it.
It’s all so…new. So…fresh. So…extraordinary.
And then it’s just a notebook. Just a phone. Just a computer. Just a yogurt. Just a YEAR. Just a day like today.
The newness might always be exciting, but it can also feel exhausting. The passage of time is a great way to compare ourselves against where and who we thought we could or would or SHOULD be by now. And if you don’t know this yet, we have a rule here: we don’t should ourselves, and we don’t let anyone else should on us, either.
This is not New Year’s Day, but it can be a New Day, or a Day.
There is nothing shinier about these days to come than the days that have passed, aside from the meaning we give them. TOMORROW could be a brand new year. TODAY, right this second could be a brand new year.
We do not need to reinvent ourselves or our lives. We do not need to strive for something bigger, better. Bigger than what! Better than what! And if you’re a driven person who is like, better than ANYONE! Okay, go on then, enjoy it if that’s your thing. But if the idea of a new year has meant that you have to be a new you, and the idea of a new you every year seems daunting, that’s because it is! A whole new you? Every year? That’s wasteful! It’s unsustainable! It’s unnecessary!
Mary Oliver wrote that we only need to let the soft animal of our body love what it loves. And for me that is an ice cold diet coke in a can in the afternoon. The sound of the lovebirds in my yard. And the fact that it’s a new year, and I still get to be the same ol me.
OUTRO MUSIC
CREDITS
It may be a new year, but you don’t need a new you. That just sounds wasteful!
About It's Going to Be OK
If you have anxiety, depression or any sense of the world around you, you know that not *everything* is going to be okay. In fact, many things aren’t okay and never will be!
But instead of falling into the pit of despair, we’re bringing you a little OK for your day. Every weekday, we’ll bring you one okay thing to help you start, end or endure your day with the opposite of a doom scroll.
Find Nora’s weekly newsletter here! Also, check out Nora on YouTube.
Share your OK thing at 502-388-6529 or by emailing a note or voice memo to [email protected]. Start your message with “I’m (name) and it’s going to be okay.”
“It’s Going To Be OK” is brought to you by The Hartford. The Hartford is a leading insurance provider that connects people and technology for better employee benefits. Learn more at www.thehartford.com/benefits.
The IGTBO team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Marcel Malekebu, Amanda Romani and Grace Barry.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.
INTRO MUSIC
January 1 is a brand-new year.
365 days of possibility lie ahead of us, unlived and therefore unspoiled.
A New Year is like a brand-new notebook, a brand-new phone, a brand-new computer…a brand new carton of yogurt that nobody has taken a spoon to yet.
And as a person who has often been bewitched by the turning of a calendar, who has approached most of her New Years with a slew of resolutions and promises and dreams, who has pummeled herself into many different shapes – none of them comfortable – through the self-improvement industry…I love it.
It’s all so…new. So…fresh. So…extraordinary.
And then it’s just a notebook. Just a phone. Just a computer. Just a yogurt. Just a YEAR. Just a day like today.
The newness might always be exciting, but it can also feel exhausting. The passage of time is a great way to compare ourselves against where and who we thought we could or would or SHOULD be by now. And if you don’t know this yet, we have a rule here: we don’t should ourselves, and we don’t let anyone else should on us, either.
This is not New Year’s Day, but it can be a New Day, or a Day.
There is nothing shinier about these days to come than the days that have passed, aside from the meaning we give them. TOMORROW could be a brand new year. TODAY, right this second could be a brand new year.
We do not need to reinvent ourselves or our lives. We do not need to strive for something bigger, better. Bigger than what! Better than what! And if you’re a driven person who is like, better than ANYONE! Okay, go on then, enjoy it if that’s your thing. But if the idea of a new year has meant that you have to be a new you, and the idea of a new you every year seems daunting, that’s because it is! A whole new you? Every year? That’s wasteful! It’s unsustainable! It’s unnecessary!
Mary Oliver wrote that we only need to let the soft animal of our body love what it loves. And for me that is an ice cold diet coke in a can in the afternoon. The sound of the lovebirds in my yard. And the fact that it’s a new year, and I still get to be the same ol me.
OUTRO MUSIC
CREDITS
Our Sponsor
The Hartford is a leading insurance provider that’s connecting people and technology for better employee benefits.
Learn more at www.thehartford.com/benefits.
Have a story you want to share?
Share your OK thing at 502-388-6529 or by emailing a note or voice memo to [email protected].
Start your message with:
"I’m (name) and it’s going to be okay."
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