If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
a lesson I learnt from Paul Rudd (maybe, maybe not)
For the past couple of years, the way I’ve spent New Year’s Eve has been a portent of the year to come.
I spent NYE 2022 having an unusual medical reaction that would foretell the TSW that defined 2023 for me.
I spent NYE 2023 tentatively seeing friends before getting tucked up in bed, early, and watching the fireworks with a cup of tea — a lesson in balance and building back up, which felt like the theme of my 2024.
Now don’t worry: this is not a “how you start the year is how you finish the year so start it strong” post — not only because I spent NYE/Hogmanay 2019 in Edinburgh surrounded by strangers at a concert, and we all know how 2020 went, but because there’s enough pressure around this time of year, and any Event That We’ve Assigned Existential Meaning To, and just in life generally.
But it has got me wondering what next year will bring.
I don’t have prepared answers to many random conversational questions (you know the type - if you went to prison what would it be for, what kind of animal would you be, etc) but the one I can always answer is “If you could have any superpowers, which one would you want?”
The answer isn’t originally mine (in fact, every time I try and remember where I heard/read it, I inexplicably think it’s Paul Rudd??? So maybe I got it from him?) but it totally rings true, and it is the power to make more of everything.
It’s so clever, because I’ve not yet encountered a situation that this power wouldn’t solve. Innocent bystander trapped under a car? More strength to push the car up. Cat stuck up a tree? More branches for the cat to deftly use as stairs. World hunger? More food.
I know what you’re going to say: what about the situations where less is the answer? Well, that’s easy: you just make more of whatever the opposite is.
I always think back to this superpower — and this superhack — around this time of year. Because I am a maximiser through and through (something I thought I’d written about on substack but can’t find, so there’s the first post of 2025 sorted!), trying to do ‘less’ of anything automatically feels stressful to me — like I’m being denied opportunities or options. It also often comes from a place, even if from myself — especially when from myself — like I’m being told off for not being enough (which is topsy-turvy, because surely it should be the other way round. Isn’t it weird how wanting less of some stuff can also make you feel less than?) So instead, I like to think of what I want to invite and cultivate more of in my life — and how I can move towards it.
Some things I’m thinking of MORE of for 2025:
joyful movement
clear surfaces (aka “less clutter”)
successful sewing projects
income
film photos
an understanding of my wardrobe
speaking opportunities
confidence, assertiveness, belief in my decisions
“good for them, and the same for me” energy (aka “less jealousy”)
and the list goes on. What about you?
Happy New Year - hope 2025’s a belter. X