There is still time to realise your 2021 resolutions

Are you just like me at this time of the year?

As we approach the last quarter of 2021, various parts of society are taking inventory of their losses and gains over the last nine months of the year.

This time of the year is usually marked by different forms of “this has been the year of…” while other people come to terms with the fact that another year is about to pass by with some or other failure dragging along into the next.

Some are scrambling to make up for lost time, hoping to tie up some loose ends before December comes.

By that time, you will only have a month left during which to either celebrate the victories of the year or finally come to terms with the loss of some goal which seemed so much more realistic and reachable at the beginning of the year.

It could be something really personal like a goal to further one’s studies, or something larger with more widespread consequences, like vaccinating the South African population against a deadly virus.

Either way, some of us will look back and have to comfort ourselves with the notion that there is always next year, while others will say: “Yes, I did it this year. I did the thing.”

That Green Day song, Wake me up when September ends, must be about 16 years old now, and my 16-year-old self interpreted its angsty lyrics along the lines of my melodramatic idea of failure and the fact that one would wish to sleep through a difficult time rather than consciously deal with the mortal consequences of the passing of that time.

Down here in the southern hemisphere, September is the month spring begins and thousands of sufferers of seasonal depression breathe an apathetic sigh of relief that grey is no longer the colour, they can taste and smell everything and perhaps there is hope for ending the year on a good note.

Maybe it’s time to buy a house plant or take up gardening as a feeble attempt to bandage some deeper trauma you don’t have the money to deal with.

Maybe it’s time to become a minimalist and cut out all your toxic friends (or lovers?).

Astrologers, whose cringeworthy iterations about the changing of seasons matching our fragile sense of self may begin to make sense this time of the year.

(Even a broken clock is correct twice a day, right?) I think my point is, if you’re reading this, take it as a sign that you still have time, at least three months or so, before the year ends and you’ve done nothing about that goal you had.

It’s the only morsel of inspiration I’ve managed to muster up after the year I’ve had so far and now I’m passing it to you, dear reader.

You have three months – polish up your CV, divorce that guy, enrol for that course!

Whatever it is, the year is only just close enough to the end for you to feel it, but there’s still time.

There has to be, because I have not lost a single kilogram or written one chapter or finished reading a single book that wasn’t for work.

We can do this, losers. It’s not too late.