I recently found the most comfortable underpants in the universe: excessively high waisted, super soft, very stretchy. I honestly forget I’m wearing them and would definitely not even bother with pants if I thought I wouldn’t be arrested for indecent exposure (or my butt wouldn’t freeze off in winter). So why am I telling you this? Trust that it’s not a last minute ploy for Christmas gifts. Instead, this is a “the new year is also most upon us” reminder to embrace the things that make you happy. Life is too short to tolerate shitty underpants (no pun intended).

January is so very close and, while I don’t subscribe to the new year-new me nonsense, there is usually a very blank canvas feeling in the air. This year is different. I’d be a liar if I said that I’m not filled with fear and foreboding, but I’m also outright determined not to let that sink me. Yes, slightly more than half of the voting public chose an unhinged felon and narcissistic sociopath who tweets about annexing Canada at 3 am to lead the country. And yes, there is a chance that he makes good on every single threat to burn our democracy to the ground and resurrect a dictatorial monarchy in his own image. But even if this comes to pass, we still have to live in this new reality. Might as well be a reality with comfy underpants, right?

I’m walking into the new year fully aware that control is an illusion and reminding myself to live in the present moment as much as humanly possible. Yes, my porches are rotting off and I can’t afford to repair them, but I can put out my rabbit statues and some potted plants. Yes, my bedroom ceiling has cracked plaster and the windows need replaced (also can’t afford to fix that), but I can put up a fresh coat of paint, some peel and stick wallpaper, and new curtains. My focus going into 2025 is re-wiring my brain to find the joy and embrace genuine gratitude wherever possible. I mean, I might as well start practicing now.

I highly encourage you to join me in this exercise of letting go and leaning in. Take for example this story my mother told me as a child when I asked her what “optimism” and “pessimism” meant.

Once upon a time there were two little boys, one was a pessimist and the other an optimist. The first boy, a pessimist, was put in a room full of brand new toys, positively packed from floor to ceiling, and then left alone to play. The second boy, an optimist, was put in an empty horse stable with horse poop as far as the eye could see and then left alone. After a few hours, the grown ups went back to see how things were going. The first boy was sitting in his room full of toys crying. “What on earth is the matter?” asked the grown ups. “Well,” said the boy, “some of the toys aren’t ones that I like and others will probably just break if I play with them, either way it’s just awful.”

Naturally, the grown ups went to check on the second boy thinking that surely he would be even more upset than the first. Imagine their surprise when they discovered him gleefully shoveling horse poo from one side of the stable to the other. “What on earth are you doing?” the adults asked. The boy just smiled and said, “Well, with all this horse poop, I figure there must be a pony in here somewhere!”

Clearly this is a story I’ve never forgotten. Happiness isn’t about actually feeling happy all the time, or even about trying to control or predict everything that is coming. Instead it is about being determined to find the joy. It’s the decision to remind yourself a thousand times a day, if that’s what it takes, that we’re not going to let the bastards keep us down. Go out there and find your own comfortable underpants, or whatever is their equivalent. You don’t have to justify your choices to anyone. Be weird, be passionate, be loud - march to the beat of your own drum. It’s time to let go of what we think should be and simply embrace what is. 

I believe in you, I believe in us. We can do hard things. No go out there and seize the underpants, I mean the day, seize the day my friends. 

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