Sometimes accidental get togethers are better than planned ones. Last night was one of those accidental ones. We didn’t plan to do anything on New Year’s Day or that night but it turned into a very fun evening. 

What defines fun? Or rather what gives you that feeling when you reflect on the evenings events that it was a great night? And are my feelings, those evoked at the time and then now through my memories of the evening, similar to others in the group? Is it solely to do with the ingredients of the good night or does it also depend on the ‘space’ that I was in at the start of the night that allowed me to experience the ingredients in a way that was fun?

I’m not sure I’m making sense here.

I’ve learnt through experience that my mental state has a lot to do with my enjoyment or otherwise of an experience. If I am in a good place, content, happy, positive etc. I will experience things in a more positive way, whereas if I’m not in a great space, the same event could leave me annoyed, frustrated and grumpy. 

I suppose it’s this –

Positive mental state + positive event = positive experience and positive feelings

Negative mental state + positive event = negative experience and negative feelings

This is an oversimplification but it’s kind of what I’m trying to get at. Same event, same actions, same people, same words spoken etc interperated differently because of my mental state. 

So are my memories of how much fun an event has been, got more to do with my mental state and less to do with the actual event?

So what have you done this holiday? I feel like I’ve not done as much as I intended… and there is of course a reason for that… I’ve sat on my arse for most of it… I’ve got into the habit of staying in bed until 8, 9, 930 etc…. it’s getting later and later, soon it’ll be lunchtime if I’m not careful.

Time seems to go quicker as you get older, the days fly by, before you know it, it’s time to go to bed again. I actually don’t sit on my arse, very rarely am I sitting around doing nothing. There’s always something needing to be done, kids to be fed, laundry, garage to be tidied, sleeping; always something to conveniently distract you from doing the things that you want to do, or at least aspire to do…

31st December again… Another year gone, another round the corner. It’s just a date tho right, nothing actually significant, it’s a construct, just another day. Yet we make it into this thing where we reflect on the past and look to the future. We follow the rest, conform to the social norm, “it’s the last day of the year” and “see you next year” chuckle… But it’s just a day…

No matter how often I tell myself that it’s just a day, I still find myself getting caught up in the illusion, I catch myself reflecting on the past and wondering what the next year will bring. I even catch myself wondering what I’ll do differently this coming year…. Which is a load of bollocks, I mean if I want to do something different I can choose to do something different any day of the year, not because it’s a New Year…

Perhaps that’s our problem, we don’t want to believe that we could do things differently tomorrow, that would be too scary, we might actually have to do something about it if we believed that. So it’s easier to live with the compartmentalised construct of old years and New Years. It gives us an excuse to not do things until the New Year…. And there are about 82 New Years on average to rationalise our commitments away….