When Cynicism Gets Boring

There’s a particular flavour of December light — that low, sideways glow — that makes everything look a little softer, a little more possible. The year is almost over but not quite finished, as if life is leaving you one last window to breathe, to gather, to reorient. It’s a strange time: equal parts exhaustion and anticipation, reflection and hunger, grief and gratitude, stillness and restlessness.

It’s the perfect atmosphere for learning how to be surprised again.

Not the forced surprises of the holiday season — not the big orchestral moments or the glittered, commercialised kind. I’m talking about the smaller surprises, the ones that slip in through the cracks you didn’t realise were still open.

The moment someone says something unexpectedly kind.
The moment a laugh punches through your fatigue.
The moment you realise your heart didn’t stay closed — it was just waiting for better reasons to open.
The moment the air shifts and you feel, for reasons you can’t articulate, a flicker of possibility.

Surprise is the cousin of wonder.
And wonder is the quiet antidote to cynicism.

But surprise — that small, human, almost embarrassing feeling — is what gets you there.
Because to be surprised, even a little, you have to loosen your grip on certainty.
You have to stop assuming life is only what it has already been.
You have to choose — gently, without fanfare — to let life move toward you again.

For people who’ve lived through disappointment (which is everyone, but especially those who grew up in faith systems that sold certainty like salvation), surprise can feel dangerous. Predictability feels like safety. Certainty feels like control. Cynicism feels like insulation.

But predictability has a cost: you don’t get surprised anymore.
And without surprise, wonder stays theoretical.

John O’Donohue wrote,

“To live a meaningful life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

And maybe part of letting yourself be surprised again is releasing the fear that openness makes you foolish.
That curiosity makes you naive.
That desire makes you weak.
That hope makes you delusional.

You’ve learned better now.
You know that cautious openness is not the same as blind trust.
You know you can soften without abandoning yourself.
You know you can make space in your life without leaving the door wide open to the things that hurt you.

This is the turning point:
To let yourself be surprised again is not a return to innocence — it’s a return to aliveness.

Think about the year you’ve had. The resilience. The adjustments. The hard conversations. The loss of false selves. The rebuilding of boundaries. The slow, steady return to your own voice. The quiet ways your body fought for your wellbeing while your mind told you you were “just coping.”

Something in you has been preparing for this — this capacity for surprise — the whole time.

Because surprise is a sign that you’re not numb anymore.
It’s a sign that cynicism loosened its grip.
It’s a sign that you’ve graduated from emotional survival mode into something like receptivity.
Not wide-open vulnerability.
Not risky naivety.
Just a little room.

A little room is all wonder needs.

The truth is, wonder doesn’t come crashing in.
It doesn’t arrive with trumpets or epiphanies.
It doesn’t demand your attention the way pain does.
It waits for an inner shift — small, subtle, barely perceptible — and then it slips in through the cracks.

You might find it in the way December evenings make everything glow.
Or in the fact that, despite everything, you’re still capable of wanting a gentle life.
Or in the way you catch yourself imagining something new for the year ahead — not dramatically, just quietly, like a door clicking unlocked.
Or in the realisation that you’ve learned to trust your heart in its current shape, rather than waiting for some imaginary healed version to arrive.

You’re letting yourself be surprised again.
Which means you’re letting yourself live again.

This is the real work of adulthood — not the cynicism, not the distance, not the hypervigilance disguised as wisdom. The real work is letting yourself be touched by life. Letting yourself soften in the exact places you once hardened. Letting something move you without giving it the keys to your whole house.

As the year draws to its close, as the lights go up and the world tries to rush you into a mood, you get to choose a different pace — a slower, truer one. One that honours your intelligence, your instincts, your boundaries, your wounds, and your profound capacity for joy.

You’re not going back to who you were.
You’re not returning to old innocence.
You’re not reclaiming a version of hope that requires you to be smaller or simpler.

You’re stepping into a new openness — a grown-up ease, a wise tenderness, a steady curiosity.

This is wonder with depth.
Wonder with teeth.
Wonder that doesn’t ask you to ignore anything — especially the hard stuff.
Wonder that comes from the part of you that has survived, healed, recalibrated, and reclaimed itself in ways you’re only just beginning to understand.

Letting yourself be surprised again doesn’t ask for anything dramatic.
Just attention.
Just honesty.
Just a breath you didn’t rush.
Just enough softness to let something good — or beautiful, or funny, or unexpected — get through.

That’s all it takes.
And you’re already doing it.

⸻

BLESSING

May this season meet you gently,
not with pressure or expectation,
but with a soft, steady whisper
that reminds you:
you are allowed to begin again.

May the tired places in you
find rest without explanation.
May the guarded places in you
feel safe enough to loosen.
May the wise, weathered parts of you
remember they were born for wonder,
not in spite of what you’ve lived through,
but because of it.

May surprise find you kindly —
a small joy, a shifted breath,
a moment of light that doesn’t demand anything
but your presence.

And may you enter the season ahead
not with certainty,
but with openness;
not with perfection,
but with honesty;
not with fear,
but with a courage so quiet
it feels like  peace.

Go gently.
And let the world surprise you.

 
Liz ox