How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - How to Fail: A Christmas Message 2021

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

With love from me to you on Christmas Day. This might not be the Christmas you expected or wanted or felt like you deserved but you're not alone. Here's to another day passing, and to the next day being full of possibility.--Whatever you're going through, a Samaritan will face it with you. They are there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Call 116 123 for free or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Happy Christmas, everyone. Or maybe for you you it's not particularly happy and that's okay too or maybe you don't celebrate christmas or maybe you think it's simply a day that has been randomly allotted its importance plucked from a series of disputed calendars invented by people several millennia ago who used the cycles of the moon as their guide.

Perhaps you know that in a pre-Christian era, the 25th of December used to be a celebration of the unconquered sun marking the return of longer days after the winter solstice. It was also the birthday of the Indo-European deity Mithra, a god of light and loyalty worshipped by Roman soldiers. So let's accept that Christmas is a bit of a fabrication. If you're not feeling especially joyful on this more or less invented day, in a year that is itself more or less invented, that's completely fine. More than fine, in fact. It's human. It's been a tough year. It's been a

tough two years. Remember at the start of the pandemic, we used to write emails to each other referring to these unprecedented times. Now the times are well and truly precedented. It feels like we've been here before and for all the hope we might have experienced at the beginning of the year that this pandemic would be in the rear view mirror by now, it hasn't quite turned out that way. But that's okay too, because when events spiral beyond our reach, the only thing we can control is our response to them. And so I choose to imagine Christmas as just another day. Sometimes it exceeds my expectations, Other times it dashes them. I try to meet both outcomes with equanimity. It is, I remind myself, just another day. Whatever emotions I might be feeling teach me more about

what it is to be human. They give me wisdom. If I felt sadness rather than cheerfulness, if I felt lost instead of belonging, sick instead of healthy, disconnected rather than accepted, isolated rather than welcomed, I try to remember that each of these emotions are valid and that in the fullness of time, my understanding of the world and my empathy for others and the strength I seek inside myself will all be nurtured by this gift of feeling. Because when things don't go according to plan, often the main cause of your unhappiness is that your expectations have not been met. But what if we set aside our expectations and just allowed ourselves to be. You're not failing at Christmas. There's no such thing. You're being human. And if you have experienced loss this year,

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry if you've dealt with pain or heartbreak or fear or disappointment, or if you feel you're not where you want to be. But here's one thing you've succeeded at this year. Here's one thing you can be monumentally proud of. You're still here. You're still experiencing life. You're still adding to the sum total of our human existence. You are like that unconquered sun worshipped so many years ago, still casting your light. And I'm so thankful for

the gift of you, the light of you, that you're still with us whatever you've been through to get here. The simple fact of your existence is enough reason to celebrate. That's enough of a reason to roast a turkey or pull a cracker or watch festive telly. But also remember you don't need to do any of that. This Christmas you can give yourself the gift of just being. So instead of a happy Christmas, I wish all of you a simple moment of peace, a time to reflect on just how far you've come. Thank you for listening to How to Fail this year, and thank you for still being here.