EDITOR’S LETTER
NEW YEAR GOALS WORTH THE RESOLVE
So this is Christmas. And what have you done? I’d wager it goes like this: you started the year with good intentions, bought new trainers, hit a few new classes and gave up drinking earlier in the week than Thursday. You faltered a bit late Feb, but got into the swing of things again come spring and made a good fist of your goals by July, so you felt happy enough with your topless self on a Greek island beach. All this you managed to keep going into early autumn until the mercury dipped and you suddenly realised come December that you’d slowly let it go and were in need of a reboot. Sound familiar? Hey, I’m no Nostradamus, I’ve just been doing this a few years. In fact, I’ve been doing it long enough to find the cycle just a little bit dispiriting. Bertrand Russell thought that love and happiness were related to spontaneity – but when we’re this predictable, how can we ever claim to be truly unshackled by restraint? I have similar misgivings with the whole ‘new year, new you’ bandwagon. For starters, what was wrong with the old you? And at what point does the new you become washed-up you again? Like Sisyphus, the Greek king forced to roll a boulder uphill for eternity, such thinking is an exercise in futility.
Am I being hypocritical? Maybe a touch. This month’s package has been curated to include a wealth of tools and tricks to help you return to your fighting weight and undo the damage of a festive season well spent. But it’s not about flagellation or denial, nor are we in the business of redemption. So yes we can help you lose the gut (p76), cleanse the liver (p27) and generally get back on the straight and narrow. But we’re also here to tell you to have your bread and eat it (p90).
A line in our Vin Diesel profile gives me real cheer. It’s from Ang Lee, who says that he has never seen the actor unhappy. I don’t know about you, but to me that’s a real goal. Because true prosperity isn’t just for Christmas or New Year. It’s for life.