If there’s one thing we continually fail to realize, it is that we often set the bar too high for ourselves when it comes to New Year’s resolutions. Somehow, the holiday season food coma makes us forget all about last year’s failed attempt at a “new year, new me,” and we decide should give it another try, for the fourth year in a row. I am by no means a stranger to this pattern, and once January leaves so does my motivation to keep a resolution. But I never seem to learn my lesson, because when December rolls around, like clockwork I, and so many others, go back to the same 10 impossibilities:
10: Do more things for yourself
Once the semester starts, college students are constantly juggling going to class with readings, readings with blog posts, blog posts with papers, papers with exams, exams with a job, a job with another job, your second job with your social life, your social life with your sleep, and whatever other hurdles you’ve got in front of you. Because there are only 24 hours in a day, sacrifices have to be made, and doing what we actually want is always the first to go.
9: Do better in school
Let’s face it: there’s nothing that’s going to get me (or anyone else) to an 8 a.m. on a Monday morning mid-semester, even though I’ve already slept through it four times. I’m sorry, but if a slightly lower grade in the class is the price I have to pay, then so be it. The fact of the matter is that in a couple years the grade I got in Intro to Plant Life won’t make or break my job interview, and a New Year’s Resolution isn’t going to change that.
8: Be confident
We all fall victim to believing confidence comes easily as if we can wake up one day and make that choice. But if it were, then it wouldn’t be on this list every single year. Of course it’s important to be confident in who you are, but who said you have to change to make that happen?
7: Try new things
In a way, this is the only resolution I’ve actually kept because 2018 is the year I’m trying not to pressure myself into changing just because the year has. Given my track record, I’d say that’s pretty new.
6: Travel more
The only possible time that traveling is an option is during break or after the semester finishes, and when that time finally comes around I mainly just want to lie down for a few days. Also, besides the fact that funds are low and expenses are high, I don’t even have a passport.
5: Give up whatever vice you’re hooked on
This is the most admirable of resolutions, because amidst doing all the things you don’t want to, you’re trying to give up the one tiny thing that brings you joy. Usually, this so called vice is detrimental to your health and giving it up is something you should actively work towards, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
4: Stop procrastinating
I’ve never been able to keep myself from falling into the black hole that is procrastination. I’ll even procrastinate things I don’t mind, like cooking dinner or taking a shower. And it’s not that I want to procrastinate, it just seems a lot easier to get lost in social media for an hour instead of starting a term paper that compares two books I procrastinated reading throughout the semester.
3: Learn a new skill/a new instrument/a new language
When?
2: Meet new people
There’s a certain excitement that comes with meeting new people, but I think that feeling often gets lost in the social anxiety of it all. Even if you’re the most comfortable person at a party, you still feel the pressures of social expectations. In those situations, my mind plays tug of war on whether I should risk my comfort to meet new people or not, but what ultimately ends up winning is thinking that there’s nothing wrong with the people I already know.
1: Go to the gym
There’s nothing like getting up and going to gym at 7 a.m. on the first day of the spring semester to find that there are at least 30 other people who had that same idea. If you keep at it for longer than the first week, you’ll start to see that number trickle down to 20, then 15, to 10, and if you’re still going after that point, it’s mainly just you and that old guy with his magazine, jogging side by side uphill on the treadmills, wondering why you felt like sweating this early in the morning was going to make you a better person in the first place. Whether you want to “get in shape,” “lose weight‚” “eat healthier‚”or “be nicer to your body‚”it’s always everyone’s number one resolution. It’s also always the first one we break. So this year as you walk out of the doors to the gym after your hourly due has been paid, wiping the last beads of sweat off your brow, ask yourself this: there’s always next year, right?