Over the Christmas holidays, I visited one of my uni friends in London, and while I was there, she said this:

‘I don’t have that many male friends because usually I find them too attractive.’

…

She later made up for it when she said, ‘don’t worry, Freddy, you’re not ugly!’

‘Not ugly.’ I aim that high.

So it appears my New Year’s Resolution is to dress better. But this comment did give my sister, family, and other friends the best laugh they’ve had in ages. Every cloud.

Shortly after this, Anna, Tom and I (stars of previous Lowe Downs) were watching the most recent season of The Traitors, and Anna suggested that I should dress more like Stephen. Stephen was the biggest star of the show alongside his co-winner, Rachel, and had become renowned for his highly flamboyant outfits. I suggest looking them up if you haven’t watched the show. They are glorious.

So, Wymondham Magazine readers, next time you see someone strolling through Market Place not quite pulling off a rainbow-coloured jumpsuit, feel free to ask for an autograph.

On a serious note, by the time this is published, we will be over a month into the New Year. I hope you are all doing well and have got to the end with your mental wellbeing intact. Having one’s attractiveness inadvertently insulted is far from the very worst thing people go through in January, so I count myself lucky.

January can, for some people, be a time for self-improvement. This is not a universally popular idea. Miranda Hart wrote in her book I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You that she doesn’t agree with New Year’s Resolutions, because she thinks we should all realise that we are Fine As We Are Now.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s a tad unfair. It’s never a bad time to reflect and see how you could be doing better. Plus, resolutions can be fun, when done well. But there is something to Miranda’s thought when self-improvement is taken way too far. You especially see this in so-called ‘experts’ on success and life-achievements.

For instance, I have recently been reading the work of one particular author in this area. He’s written several books on strategy, success, and how to scheme your way to the top. He is, depending on who you ask, a brilliant truth-teller simply describing the world as it is, or a Machiavellian little schemer whose advice shouldn’t be touched with a bargepole.

I’m a fan of this guy, but with several caveats. I used to be in his thrall. I would read every page of his books like they were dripping with wisdom. I would latch onto every YouTube Short with him in it that came onto my timeline, desperate to listen to his next best axiom about how to do well in life.

It was only several weeks in that I realised his advice, while good, is riddled with contradiction.

I mean seriously – if you were to internalise every single piece of advice he gives and hold them all in your head at all times and apply them in every situation, you’d be so paralysed with overwhelm and indecision that you wouldn’t achieve anything at all.

In the same volume, he advises you both to always be the centre of attention, and to always say less than necessary because silent people who blend into the crowd are more powerful. (How you could follow these two completely incompatible pieces of advice at the same time is anyone’s guess.)

He advises you that bruising people’s egos is a cardinal sin; you must always cater to what others want to hear. This will make them favour you in the longer term. At the same time, being too nice is a terrible mistake. You’ve got to be tough and give pain now and then. It shows that you have dimension! (How do you be tough and ‘give pain’ without bruising people’s egos?)

I think I finally saw the light when I saw a YouTube clip of him saying how important it was not to sweat the small stuff, that we’ve got to let go of our petty day-to-day squabbles, bury the hatchet with our enemies, and focus on longer-term goals. This was all good and grand, until I remembered that this was the same man who wrote an entire book on ‘crushing’ your enemies (I kid you not) and the importance of demoralising your opponents in life.

Of course, I exaggerate for effect. This man is largely sound and erudite, and a lot of his writing is genuinely brilliant. But you get my point. Were you to follow absolutely every piece of advice and attempt to live your life by all of them, you’d be so crippled with doubt that you’d be plagued with even more anxiety.

So, the message of this New Year’s Lowe Down is: you’re probably doing fine as you are. Keep living life to the full.

And if someone ever tells you you’re ‘not ugly’, it probably just came out wrong. I’m sure you’re lovely.