BY EDISON MARTE SICAD
ADVERSITY Quotient is a person’s ability to face situations, problems, and obstacles in life. A person with an adversity quotient will be able to effectively face obstacles and take advantage of opportunities (Stoltz, 1997); it can be seen in a person’s ability to maintain his or her composure when facing problems. – National Library of Medicine
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Allow me to share this article of my former student, now a lawyer in a private law firm, that speaks about daily struggles, self-motivation, and mental health. May these lessons about resilience, bad habits, and family love be of help to you.
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Around this time some years ago, I would already have given up on my New Year’s Resolutions.
The ones I made back then were clichés: regular exercise, giving up soda and junk food, spending more time with my parents, etc. I try to make resolutions every year as a form of self-improvement. However, after a few weeks, there’s a good chance I can randomly be found sitting in front of my laptop with a can of Pepsi and some Piattos chips watching some video game streamer play Dota 2 on Twitch.
I became everything I swore I would never be. Wait, no, that’s inaccurate. I stayed as someone I promise I would not be anymore.
I start formulating these resolutions early December of the previous year. Then, I wait for the clock to strike at midnight between the 31st and the 1st. In the interim, I give in to the passion. I engage on the wild and drunken revelries that see me sleeping at 3 a.m. for no legitimate reason at all except to “enjoy” before I start “the first day of the rest of my life”.
Guess that didn’t work, huh.
Last June 2022, I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. I forced myself to go to a psychiatrist because I had been plagued with persistent suicidal ideation and extreme sadness. The symptoms got so bad to the point where I would eat only once a day and not take a bath at all for maybe three or four days straight.
Luckily, I got the anti-depressants I needed. That said, my psychiatrist told me that medication has to go hand-in-hand with radical lifestyle changes. I let out a heavy sigh. “This is it,” I told myself, “This is going to be my every day.”
After that diagnosis, I went to a restaurant and ate some chicken breast. On that afternoon, I tried lifting heavier weights than usual. After the workout, I talked to my mother to plan out how we would finance the medication especially since anti-depressants were (and still are) not cheap. Then, the topic of our conversation changed from the deep to the mundane: whether we should get a new dog, whether we should go fishing, the latest TikTok dance trends, the lives of Philippine celebrities, and the usual neighborhood chismis.
I noticed that I talked to my family a lot more. I told them I love them more frequently. I started eating healthier, writing a journal, meditating, and weightlifting. Was I still attacked by suicidal ideations? Yes, and I still am until now, but I got the help I needed to control them – help which would have been utterly useless if I did not actively make healthier choices every day. Every. Single. Day.
At least, my New Year’s Resolutions of exercising regularly, eating healthier, and spending more time with my family were achieved not because I waited for the Earth to complete one cycle around the Sun but because I did not give a hoot about the first of January. I told myself I need to change my lifestyle now. Pronto.
Maybe that’s where it all goes wrong. What I used to bring into the next year is not a renewed system of values but a meaningless list of things to do within a completely arbitrary timeframe. Imagine if I waited until I were “ready” before I changed. I would not have been able to combat depression.
Waiting for the New Year to change is still a product of the Mañana habit that we were all taught to despise. It is still procrastination, and procrastination, as they say, is the thief of time.
My takeaway is this: self-care and self-improvement are day-to-day struggles. I feel that New Year’s Resolutions often do not work because people are changing too much too soon. In hindsight, it’s funny how I just expected to sleep on December 31 and wake up on January 1 with all the discipline of a military officer and the motivation of a person who just attended an inspirational talk. I was such a pea-brain.
It is motivation that gets things started and discipline that gets things done. However, neither of them is borne overnight. They both take a whole-souled devotion to being better: a devotion that walks rather than talks, that performs rather than pontificates. They both take a spirited resolution that waits for no new year.
If you want to be better, do it now./PN
