You're not falling behind, it's just January.
Rambling about our strife for productivity, why capitalist social media sucks, and January.
What do you think of when you think of January?
To me, January has always been associated with doing laundry.
Dust in the air.
The musty smell of a gym that I desperately don’t want to be in.
Supplements that I’ll forget to take by week 2.
Bullet journals that I lose and find towards the end of the year.
‘Reset with me’ videos on YouTube. The girls in the thumbnails always look so put together.
I’ve always hated this same ebb and flow of the New Years; nothing makes me feel like an actual slug person than New Year’s Day does.
Why are we so obsessed with being productive?
All my life I’ve always felt like I needed to prove myself to others by working harder than everyone else.
As if my work ethic was a testament to my character and nature - as if that makes me as good as, if not better than others.
I worked at four different part time jobs when I was nineteen while I pursued my bachelor’s degree. I was mainly doing it to save up for flight tickets to Austria, but I was also doing it because it made me feel valuable. I liked being the subject of ‘God, she’s so hardworking and busy’ comments.
All the while, I was juggling a long distance relationship, a borderline alcohol problem and insomnia all at once. I thought I might go to bed one day and never wake up.
I did a short internship at a post-production company when I was twenty years old.
From ten to six, I translated 50-page documents, proofread scripts, edited subtitles on foreign films, watched and reviewed hours of indie films before they got sent off in DCP form. I was the fastest worker in the building. I prided myself whenever I clocked in for a different project. I felt good, I felt productive.
Until my manager pulled me aside one day and told me that I needed to slow down, because they didn’t have anymore tasks for me to do. They couldn’t keep making up things for me to do during the day.
Making up things for me to do? I’ve never felt stupider in my life.
I sat in front of my desktop and blanked out for a good 15 minutes before I tentatively asked my deskmate if there was anything I could do to help.
He gave me the biggest side eye and asked me to grab a coffee for him.
I went home crying.
The causes for our endless strife for productivity and self improvement are the usual suspects: capitalism, technology and social media.
I grew up watching the classic beauty/lifestyle girls on Youtube. Bethany Mota, Meredith Foster, Zoella, I watched and absorbed all of their videos from the age of 13.
Their lives on the screen looked objectively better than mine, and I desperately wanted to emulate it. I wanted to wear what they wore, eat what they ate, because maybe then I’d be as happy as them. For a solid week, I tried to model my mornings after their morning routine videos - with the milky coffees, the vanilla yogurt and granola (which I hated), the multiple skin care and make up steps before my mother (bless her) shut that shit down.
She likened the beauty gurus I loved to salespeople, told me we didn’t have things like Silk branded almond milk in the supermarket, to just eat my eggs and rice (before she made me) and go to school.
And even at age 23, I’m plagued by algorithms that constantly push product after service after product to constantly ‘better’ myself - be it a workout plan, a brand of healthy food products, a new skincare product, etc.
Corporations have always targeted and preyed on our worst insecurities, packaging our problems with pretty bows and promising us that only they can fix us. They can help us out.
The rise of ‘-girl’ in social media scapes doesn’t help either. Clean girl, it girl, that girl - social media is so saturated with these intangible aesthetics that commodify confidence and infinite personal improvements as a lifestyle (instead of a feeling or a moment).
But lest we forget, presenting these ‘lifestyles’ is a job for these people. It is quite literally their JOBS to live a certain way, to use certain products. How dystopian is that? And how can we expect ourselves to sustain a similar lifestyle when we have a whole separate life to live?
No one can, or should be climbing an endless flight of stairs. That’s just stupid.
New Year, New Me!
I’ve so often sat by myself with a vaguely pretty journal, scribbling down all the different ways I’d reinvent myself in the new year.
I’d lose weight this year. To be healthy, not because I hated my body (this was a lie). I’d stop ordering food in, I’d go to dance classes again, I’d paint more, I’d write more, I’d-
And by the time January ended, I’d feel defeated and my journal would collect dust in the corner of my bedroom.
But January is too soon after the decadence of the holidays to even start thinking about change. The sun isn’t even up when it should be - how do we expect our brains to be remotely normal in these conditions?
I rang in the first day of 2024 with my closest girl friends from different phases of my life. One convinced me to fight a random man, the other threatened to text a fool if I did. (I didn’t end up fighting the man, I couldn’t.) We rushed to get tequila shots at the stroke of midnight, and listened to Auld Lang Syne while smushed against the bar countertop. We ate kebabs at 1am. We went on a nostalgic bar crawl and went home at 7am, shaking and laughing and crying.
And then I got the worst hangover I’ve ever gotten in my life. I texted my friend the day after to find an identical text from her: “did u get an anxiety attack after all that lol”
The answer was a resounding yes. (We’ve decided to go dry for as long as we can this year. Alcohol is simply not working for us anymore.)
I painted my nails a deep red colour to cover up the scratch marks on my nail beds after an at-home gel removal.
I started carrying a water bottle in hopes of fixing my chronic dehydration.
I’ve been cooking. I still order in though because grocery prices are insane, what the hell?
The 4 year old blonde dachshund I wanted to adopt got adopted. I cried. Her name was Barbie.
I went back to work. I have around 5 months left here, and it’s as busy as ever. I am reveling in the busy as much as I can. I know I’ll miss it when I’m gone.
I’ve been taking an alternate bus route so I get a 30 minute walk to my place after getting off. (I’m trying to get my steps in, but sometimes the old bus route works for when I’m too tired to walk.)
I didn’t get even half of my 2023 resolutions done.
And my life didn’t end. It just keeps going.
We’re not falling behind, reader.
We just haven’t seen the sun at its regular time in a little while.
And we’re not failures because we failed some New Year’s resolutions.
It was an answer-less plight to begin with.
This year, I want to focus on community. I want to use up all that I have and replenish them, bit by bit.
I want to make good changes because I want to make them, not because I feel the need to do so, or because I feel stagnant without improvement.
I cut my hair into a shoulder length bob on a Sunday night because I felt like it.
I took time off work because I’m ill.
And I don’t want to even think about how productive I’m being.
Until next time,
Kim.
“January has always been associated with doing laundry.” Love this and your essay.