All around you are family, friends, and strangers using the excuse of a new January 1st to restart, relaunch, or reboot their lives. You may doubt their sincerity, their dedication, or their grasp on reality, but you’re not in charge of their story arcs. For whatever reason, they’ve decided their “series” needs to begin again from scratch. Some of them aren’t so sure about what they’re doing, but they firmly believe the results will justify the scheme. Some of them will be wrong, but it’s possible a few of them may be on to something.

What if they’re right? What if it works and they win? Can you steal their idea after the fact and hope no one notices? And how can tell when it’s your turn to end your current numbering and start over from #1? Check your life for one or more of the following warning signs:

* Situations and struggles have become so predictable, what once took you twenty-two minutes to solve now takes only two.

* The world around you seems poorly drawn, as if the architect of your universe is distracted and rushing to get each day over with.

* Every other day you’re butting heads with the same arch-nemesis again and again and again, as if there’s nothing better for you to do.

* Your best friends nag you about how your life has become too boring to follow, and keep writing long essays about how they’d make your life 100 times better if they were in charge.

* Your last few decades’ worth of continuity have become so convoluted that you now have multiple conflicting memories of singular events, all impossible to reconcile with each other.

* You find yourself saddled against your will with one or more lame, whiny sidekicks.

* You have a tiny, hardcore group of supporters who think you’re winning at life, but deep down you wish you could sacrifice them all, sell out, and appeal to a much wider, younger, shallower, less discerning audience instead.

* Everyone else around you is doing it, and hopping on bandwagons is cool.

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