Well, hi there and welcome back. My name is Stephanie Safarian, and you're listening to the first

new episode of 2025 of the Sustainable Minimalist Podcast. Yes, you are. Happy 2025, by the way.

This is a show about intentional and eco-friendly minimalist living. And on today's show,

we're questioning that New Year, New You mantra that is pushed on so many of us in a commercialized society.

When we prescribe to the New Year, New Year, New You mantra, first of all, it can be quite enticing to do so, right?

New Year, fresh start, I'm going to fix all my problems. I'm

going to fix everything that's wrong with me, right? The temptation to do that can be strong.

However, I do find myself wondering whether we think there's so many things wrongs with us that we need

to fix in the new year. Is that a legitimate concern?

Is that true? Or is that desire to fix all our problems a commercialized construct? Because remember,

the media and advertising in particular, they do their best work when we feel bad about ourselves, when we identify perceived problems

about ourselves that we feel like we need to fix.

When we try to fix what we've been told is broken, that's when other people, other corporations,

make money.

They take our money. And certainly, while there is a difference

between self-improvement, trying to become the best person you can be versus just throwing up

your hands and saying, this is who I am, who cares, I'm my messy self, There's a middle ground there. And today my guest and I are

trying to nail that middle ground down. I want to know, can we become the best we can be

without subscribing to the frankly untrue belief that, again, is pushed on us that we have

problems we need to fix. We need to be skinnier.

We need to read more books and get smarter. We need to be nicer. We need to volunteer more.

Do we? Do we? So here to help me break all of this down, New Year, same old wonderful you, perhaps, is Tyler Moore. This is Tyler's second

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