Our gay life coach Brian W. Fairbanks now considers this most challenging time for lots of us - New Year as we optimistically look forward to 2023. For many people the prospect of another twelve months can be difficult to face, especially if you think your life is in a rut. So how do you shake off the New Year Blues?

If you listened to yuletide music at all, you might have heard the song about the boy who wants to buy a pair of shoes for his dying mother because "I want her to look beautiful if mummy meets Jesus tonight."

Then there's Dido's song about the true love who promised to return for her on Christmas Day but never did.

And this is the season to be jolly? The season in which even heterosexuals don gay apparel?

For many people New Year can be even gloomier.

Before senility sank in, the American radio and television writer and crotchety old homophobe Andy Rooney did make one wise suggestion: begin the new year in autumn when the trees change color and the weather turns brisk. In January, nothing seems new, so you have to use your imagination to view it as a beginning. The world looks the way it did before Christmas, but there's no longer the pleasure of seeing the festive lights reflected in the snow. The days are shorter, the nights are colder, and the tendency is to seek comfort in the old habits we were hoping to break. Eat, drink, and be merry, and light a cigarette while you're at it because the world outside the window is pretty darn bleak.

That's the wrong approach especially if you're looking for love in the new year. Misery may love company, but companions in misery are still miserable. Love and romance aren't likely to blossom in the darkness of despair.

So, how do you shake off those new year blues, and make yourself attractive to someone who'll bring some much needed sunlight into your life in these dreary days of winter?

Sometimes wisdom can be found in the unlikeliest places. Somewhere in my brain there resides the memory of an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in which our heroine Mary Richards is lamenting the monotonous state of her life.

"I wake up. I eat breakfast. I get dressed. I go to work. I come home. I eat dinner. I go to bed."

It was Ted Baxter, the pompous anchorman more famous for having silver hair than a silver tongue who saw what Mary's life was missing. He gave her the following advice:

"Wake up! Eat breakfast! Get dressed! Go to work! Come home! Eat dinner! Go to bed!"

Notice the exclamation points. What Mary lacked was enthusiasm, the secret ingredient to a life well-lived.

More often than not, our routine becomes monotonous because we fail to fully experience life even as we live it. We don't eat dinner. We eat dinner while also reading the newspaper with a sly eye on the television and with our ear glued to the phone. We hear music while cleaning the house or while occupying a bar stool, but rarely stop all activities to truly listen to it. It's not entirely our fault. We live in hectic, fast-paced times but those times are stealing our lives. Instead of a living a life worthy of an epic novel, we're stuck with the equivalent of Reader's Digest .

The worst thing about living life at an accelerated pace is that we can become impatient in our relationships. Instead of taking things slowly and getting to know our dates, we may be tempted to keep watch out of the corner of our eye for a man with a sexier smile or a bigger basket. And our dates may be doing the same thing to us.

It was probably a Buddhist who said that the meaning of life is life. Instead of taking each day as it comes, and enjoying whatever pleasure comes our way in each moment, we're looking off into the distance, waiting for some sort of climax, an orgasmic conclusion, a pay off. "Where is our relationship going?" is a question we frequently ask of our lovers when they're not asking it of us, but why does a relationship have to go somewhere? Isn't the relationship enough? Isn't the relationship itself what it's all about?

So let the snow fall. Let it freeze you in your tracks. Fight the gloom by taking the time to truly focus on, to experience, all of your activities, even if it's something as simple as eating a bowl of soup. Put some exclamation points in your life! Life will never be slower than it is in winter, so take advantage of the season. © Brian W. Fairbanks, All Rights Reserved.