The John Griff Column: Turning the page on the perpetual calendar

And yet, with the arrival of 2024, many of us will be looking for those all too often Teflon coated promises to ourselves – our resolutions to better at this, more diligent at that and generally be better human beings in a myriad of ways. Teflon coated resolutions? Yes, because almost in the same breath as they are announced, they slip out of our minds, as though the mere utterance of them has conferred credibility, application and premature completion on us. Many years ago, I made two new year resolutions. The first was not to indulge in any naked inline skating – not a particularly difficult resolution to maintain. The second (after the first) was never to make any resolutions again. Thus far, this resolution too remains intact.

For all that though, there are ways in which I intend to be a better person. There’s one in particular that I want to achieve, because I consider myself to be a fundamentally lazy person. I’m generally very good at being organised – this article is being written well ahead of its publication date, but it is probably so well ahead because I fancy sliding into a bout of indolence – and time, as is well known, passes quickly. Friends I speak to on the subject are usually quite surprised by my self-appraisal, because most would describe me as more of a workaholic, not only getting the job done in good time, but probably doing so to the detriment of things I should be taking better care of in my private life. It is, though, the way I am wired, or have been so up until now.

2023 has, in a number of ways, been one of the hardest years of my life. Seemingly populated by nothing but successive setbacks – and I am merely one of many to have been so affected – the past twelve months have seemed like an unremitting marathon of pressure, negativity and general misery. I cannot begin to calculate the hours of good quality sleep lost to successive topics of concern – one or two of which you might already be aware if you are a regular consumer of this article (sincerely, thank you). I have no idea of what depression looks like from the perspective of a professional diagnosis and I used to have what I now recognise to be a very cavalier attitude towards it - but if 2023 didn’t actually submerge me from time to time, then it certainly helped me to dip both feet in its waters. For years on the radio I ran with stories about mental wellbeing, saying that we all needed to be better at talking about it. 2023 has been the year when ‘physician heal thyself’ became more than a phrase and became an imperative. So has anything changed?

Well, yes, as a matter of fact it has. Being forced to follow certain paths in life by events not of my making and which I couldn’t wrangle towards a more positive outcome, I have reframed my attitude towards mental wellbeing and perhaps my resilience towards challenges of a similar kind. I have always been an outwardly positive person by and large; I have also proved myself to be a good actor when the circumstances have required me to be so. Such has been the case on plenty of occasions through this year. We all have adversity thrown at us from time to time – my attitude to my own has always been one of ‘get on with it – nobody wants to know about your problems because everyone has them’. It is still my attitude, although I have opened up to certain, close friends who have been kind enough to hear me out and allow me to vent. And there’s always going to be someone worse off than me – I truly count my blessings not to be in one of the current war zones being contested right now.

I used to hugely enjoy kart racing – indeed, I presented a number of TV series about it and was supported by circuit owners Phil and Glen who encouraged me in my first forays on their track at GP Karting in St James, allowing me to practice at will. I needed it too – on one occasion some of the guys I used to race with put a sticker on the back of my helmet. I didn’t notice for some time – it read simply ‘mobile chicane’. Within a season though, I had started to learn some of the tricks of the track and had actually begun to win races, taking the ‘most improved driver’ accolade at the end of season awards. Perhaps the category was created especially for me. That encouragement was priceless though and if I was feeling pressured, annoyed or fed up with the world in general, I used to go over, suit up and tear around the circuit for half an hour or so, letting out banshee screams down the main straight at maximum speed where nobody could hear me above the sound of my kart’s engine. It was a wonderful way to de-stress and gave me a great workout at the same time. Eventually the pressures of work and a lack of available time forced me off the track – Phil and Glen sold up and things were never the same. Perhaps I should take up the racing – or at least the practising – again. I have the ‘mobile chicane’ sticker on my helmet to this day and can still get in my race suit, as long as I don’t breathe too expansively.

And I guess that’s my point. Pressure in some form or other is a constant for so many people in these enlightened times – but maybe we can find our own ways to process it. The new year is certainly going to be full of it, what with the state of the UK economy, world conflict and the small matter of a general election to negotiate. Globally, more people will have the opportunity to have their say politically than ever before – what will be their choices? Whatever they are, I think I might break my longstanding resolution and make a new one, to deal with those things directly in front of me first, and perhaps a little more directly than might have been the case before.

Goodbye 2023 – and good riddance. Hello 2024 – how are we going to get on when you arrive?