Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine January 2018 New Year, New You | Page 12

New Year, New Mindset . . .
Maybe?
Happy New Year! Hopefully, by now, you’ve had
the chance to have your collard greens and
black-eyed peas and fish and cornbread and
things like that to create blessings upon your
household for the rest of the year.
What? You don’t do that? Man, listen! Nah, on
second thought, sometimes superstitions are
what they are, I can’t tell you what to do or not to
do. Especially when I’m about to say something
with regard to another tradition.
So, now that I’ve gotten one of the many lovely
superstitious rituals out of the way (you know
them, the whole “the man is supposed to be the
first one to cross the threshold of your home
on New Year’s Day; don’t wash clothes on New
Year’s Day, etc.), I want to have a sit down with
you so we can have a chat, okay? Like, can we
talk, for real, for real? Okay, good. I’m glad I could
count on you to be my sounding board, a bruh
really appreciates it.
So, about this new year, new mindset type of
situation that I’m sure you’ve seen on social
12 | NKLC Magazine
Shakir Rashaan
media, right? Well, let me throw myself in the mix
a bit with it, because I have my own unorthodox
methodologies when it comes to dealing with the
new year and my resolutions—or lack thereof—
that need to be invoked and held up the rest of the
year.
Simply put, resolutions are for lazy people. Yes,
I said it, it’s for lazy people. Even as authors, to
sit there and say that we’re planning to hold
ourselves to something that we didn’t do the year
prior, it makes it difficult to change a habit in less
than a week or a month. Now, what I’m saying is,
instead of dropping the grandiose “my New Year’s
Resolution is” statement, what needs to happen is
to hush, look in the mirror, and look at the person
in the mirror and commit to that person. The rest of
the world doesn’t matter.
Case in point, I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions.
I do, however, look at the man in the mirror and ask
him one simple question: “What can I do this year
to stretch beyond my comfort zone?”