City A.M. rules for life: Top tips to brighten your January

Dear Tom Eliot, in his laugh-riot The Waste Land, said that “April is the cruellest month”. I’ve always thought he was wrong, and that the curse surely lands on January: Christmas is over, you have spent, eaten and drunk too much, you feel like you never want to see your family again and it is cold and dark. Society encourages us to make resolutions but it is a dastardly business of kicking you when you’re down.

If you want a new and better job, or to lose three stones and be beach-ready by the summer, or finally learn to hang-glide/cross-stitch/speak Tagalog, I am not your man. I have never presented myself as a life coach or spiritual guru. What I will do, however, is offer you a few simple steps—what I would call “life hacks”, if I were more annoying than I am—to bring a little cheer into your life and increase the sum of human happiness by just a tiny amount.

1) Find half an hour in the week to read the newspaper. No, I mean read it: all of it. News, international news, comment, business, sport, arts. This isn’t about finding out what happened yesterday, but about tuning yourself into the world at large. Too easily we retreat behind headphones, books, Kindles, scarves, sunglasses, and I understand that urge to shrink inwards. But we thrive on connection, on mutuality, on relationships. I promise, there is no quicker or more satisfying way to feel you are part of a greater whole.

2) Polish your shoes properly. Jordan Peterson in his 12 Rules for Life advocates making your bed as the foundation of self-respect but I’ll go one further. A man with a pair of proper leather shoes, polished to a deep shine by dint of effort and care, is a man who can walk taller in the world. You may even enjoy it. If you’re the sort of person who savours a bit of ritual, lay out some old newspapers (see point 1), get a tin of polish, cloths, brushes and a bowl of warm water, then roll up your sleeves and really get going. It is one of the most cathartic things you will this side of therapy, and when you are abroad, shaking a boulevardier’s leg in the West End, you will catch sight of the high sheen of your brogue and feel a warming glow inside.

3) Whatever your style, ratchet your sartorial game up one notch. I won’t presume to speak for other traditions and identities, but if you are roughly in my lane, then look for a splash of colour: a bright pocket square, or a vivid pair of socks, or a shirt with an eye-catching stripe or check. It may seem a small thing, and so it is, but to Jordan Peterson I will add the wisdom of Sir David Brailsford: it’s all about marginal gains. “They’re tiny things but if you clump them together it makes a big difference.”

4) Do one thing more slowly. Maybe you tend to get a takeaway coffee in the morning, or a sandwich at lunchtime. If so, find 20 minutes, sit down and savour it. Everyone has the time if they want to find it badly enough, and the simple act of sitting in peace, giving your thoughts the space to circulate and mingle, is incredibly efficient and restorative. It can be immeasurably rejuvenating and will frame your day.

I can’t offer a panacea. The world is a brutal place at times and it can seem at its most brutal at the moment, meteorologically, politically and internationally. The best we can do is hope to get through this spiralling carnival in one piece and leave more good than bad behind us. But hopefully these few little measures – my unofficial rules for life – might boost the spirits a little, bring some cheer and make the rest of this cruel month and the ones that follow more bearable.