Jan 2 and He’s Already Here

This morning I woke up smack dab in the middle of an anxiety attack. It started before I even opened my eyes. I could already hear him, Ole Mr. Nasty running his mouth, listing every errand I hadn't run, appointment I hadn't made, dream I hadn't realized before 2024 was done.

You know him. Mr. Ole Nasty. The voice that's never satisfied. The one that greets you at dawn like a bill collector. You didn't finish this. You didn’t finish that. You said you'd do this. You said you’d do that. Remember that book idea from a year ago, two years ago, three years ago? All still waiting.

Never mind the book I polished and released last summer. The other three manuscripts I finally finished in an exhausting rush last fall. Nope. Nope. None of them counted.

According to Ole Mr. Nasty, only what I hadn't done counted. Anything I had didn’t.

So I lay there in the dark and fought to give in. Yup. That’s right. I wanted to give in, give up. Figured it would be easier. But I couldn’t. Mama was the daughter of a sharecropper. Daddy was the son of a coal miner. Folks who didn’t have it in them to quit.

Turns out, I don’t either.

So I did something they teach in fancy business schools: it’s called managing expectations. Except there, they’re talking about managing customer expectations. In this case, I was talking about managing mine.

First, I sorted. What can I control? What can't I? Amazing how much falls into that second pile once you're honest about it. Then I triaged what was left. What's got a real deadline—not one I made up? What's high priority, what's medium, what's low? What's a single task and what's actually a whole project pretending to be one thing?

Breaking big goals into smaller pieces doesn't make them easy. But it makes them visible. And visible beats monstrous.

Then, still nervous, but less anxious, I did something I really should've done "last year," (last year being only a couple of days ago): I took count of where I was last year this time. What I'd accomplished—some of it by accident. What I'd delayed and the world didn't end. What I thought would be urgent but turned out to be perfectly postponable. Funny how much we carry that we never needed to pick up.

Last but not least, still lying there in the dark, I wrote my own bio in my head. My life, but as if it belonged to someone else. I read it like a stranger would. And you know what? That stranger had done alright. More than alright. She'd gotten through things that would've flattened somebody else. She'd made things. Finished things. Survived things.

Ole Mr. Nasty didn't like this exercise one bit. But I wasn't asking its permission.

A reminder: nobody knows your struggle better than you do. Not your family, not your friends, not that voice in your head that majored in disappointment. You're the only one who knows what it cost you to get here. And "here" is further than you think.

So before you start making resolutions, take inventory. Not of your failures. Of your survival. This is not an invitation to self-pity—but to self-appreciation.

Write your bio like it belongs to someone you admire. Tell the facts—tell them straight, without negative shading. Read it out loud if you have to. Let yourself be impressed.

Identify your dreams—including the ones Ole Mr. Nasty said you could never achieve. Maybe you can't achieve those dreams. But maybe you don't really want to. Maybe that dream was never yours to begin with—and letting it go takes more courage than grinding ever did.

And when you've identified your dreams, don't settle for a "You can't." Only settle for an answer to "How."

Set goals. Yeah, go ahead, set 'em. But set ones that fit your life. Ones you can break into achievable pieces. Ones with real deadlines or no deadlines at all. Ones that make you feel like you're building something instead of just paying off a debt to some impossible version of yourself.

And be honest about something else—that sure enough something's gonna come along during the year to practically knock you off your skates. Maybe for a little while, maybe for longer. So be flexible. Plan but make room for disappointment, forgive yourself in advance for delays and distractions.

And learn to say, "Yes." Yes, to the good and unexpected. You never know where it might lead. Sometimes good things do happen—when we least expect them, and are least prepared for them. Bad situations are hard, sure. But at least they're familiar. And change, especially change we didn't count on, can be scary. That's no reason to say no—and every reason to at least consider saying, "All right, then. I'm ready."

Every year around this time a lot of us get real ambitious. We roll out a fresh calendar like it's a pardon from the governor and swear we're gonna turn over a new leaf. Trouble is, it's usually the same leaf we turned over last year. By January 2nd, a lot of us are already carrying both—what’s behind us and what’s coming next.

But that's okay.

We're all out here trying. That's not failure in slow motion. That's just living.

New year. Same us. But maybe a little kinder about it.

— Walker