5 Ways to Ruin Your New Year!

Most posts on January 1st are something like this: “5 Ways to Make Your New Year Great!

But I think we need to see the other side of the coin too.  We need to see how we can ruin our new year, how we can make it a total disaster.

So with that in mind, here are five ways to ruin your new year.

Total Ruin in 5 Easy Steps

  1. Be selfish.  Selfishness is a fast lane toward ruin.  Despite the constant message to put ourselves first before others, there truly is no better way to be unhappy than to do so.  How do I know?  Well, my life is proof.  In almost every instance during which I’ve been disappointed with life, it can be traced back to being selfish.  And when I’m trying to be selfless, that’s when I find peace, joy, and hope.
  2. Be distant.  Another fast track to ruin is to cut yourself off from people in your life.  No matter if you’re an introvert or an extrovert you need people.  You were made to be in community with others.  But if you want to ruin your new year?  Then, by all means, make no room for others in your life!
  3. Be scattered.  Ruin is sure to come to those who are spread thin and who can’t focus.  When we have too many things going in our lives, it can become taxing, if not impossible, to keep them all going well.  But if we focus our attention on one thing at a time, giving it the attention it deserves, it’s likely we’ll do a better job of avoiding disaster.
  4. Be worried.  Jesus said that worrying doesn’t help us at all…and he was right!  Worrying about stuff can lead to ruin for one simple reason: the vast majority of our worries never come to fruition.  Have you ever noticed that?  We lose sleep over things that might happen, all the while we miss out the things that are actually happening in our lives!
  5. Be lazy.  But the truly easiest way to ruin your year is to be lazy, to do nothing.  The entire universe is on a path toward entropy, and our lives are on paths toward ruin if left unchecked.  We need structure, energy, and effort to make steps toward our desired outcomes.  Things normally don’t “just happen.”  As they say, luck favors the prepared.

What do you think?  How else can you ruin your new year?  How can you ensure that things will not turn out how you want them to?  Let me know in the comments below!