Bytheway...my prescription for 2013 is to think positive

AT THIS time of year many of us are thinking of New Year’s resolutions, most of which never last. And as I made my own plans for 2013, it occurred to me to draw on the principles of cognitive behavioural therapy, which teaches that how you feel is based upon your way of thinking: i.e. have positive thoughts and you will feel positive.

I’d been getting rather depressed in recent times about the news across the medical world. Those working in the NHS seem to be squeezed between massive cutbacks and ever- increasing red tape (rather than the reverse we were promised), with the constant pressure to achieve ever more in less time.

Most of us are trying to square the circle between our vocation and the drive to be all things to all men, while officialdom continues to believe it knows best and persists in interfering with our professional lives. This forces us to jump through ever-smaller hoops with greater and greater agility.

But these problems are not exclusive to medicine — who in the modern workplace is not subject to these measures?

And then I remembered Epictetus (having to study Latin and Greek at school in the Sixties may have been useful after all). A Greek philosopher, he lived and worked around the time of Christ, and was born into slavedom. He created the foundations of cognitive behavioural therapy by drawing attention to the fact that it’s not what happens to our life that upsets us, but how we respond to it. He said we should realise that our fate is beyond our control.

Accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately, and follow the principle of ceasing our attempts to control the uncontrollable: this will achieve happiness and peace of mind.

And so on that basis, here is a New Year resolution that can, and will last: we must stop complaining and get on with it, and control our own actions through determined self-discipline. Give it a whirl!