My New Year's Resolution

Photo courtesy here

Today is the second day of year 2016, and I feel sort of grossly cliché for writing a blog post about this.

I spent New Year's Eve with a small group of my close friends, most of it laying on the carpet and making awful jokes about 2015's trends. When the clock struck midnight we set off those annoying popper things and made a mess that we later had to clean up. Emma and I shared a large blanket when we went outside to light sparkles in the snow. We played good music and drank effervescent champagne.

The second we entered 2016, social media was instantly blown up with posts and cheesy quotes like "New Year, New Me!!" This entire concept is sort of amusing. People use a measurement of time to excuse their lack of work ethic or accomplishments; they use this absurd holiday to make themselves feel better about not fulfilling their goals, because now they can create new resolutions that they will again fail to achieve.

I've decided only to develop one resolution this year, considering I believe them to be stupid.

My New Year's resolution is to never have New Year's resolutions again.

According to this website, only 8% of people are successful in achieving their resolutions. So I honestly don't see the point in my making them.

Plus, if you want to change something about yourself, you are perfectly capable of doing this at any moment throughout the year. You don't have to wait until January 1st in order to fix your life. People often grow oblivious to this, but as humans we are very capable of fixing things – especially things about ourselves. You may see yourself as indecisive or boisterous, but you can change your own traits. If you're sick of being too loud or too shy then stop. Your personality is not set in stone. If you don't want to act the way you do, don't. If you don't want to do the things you do, don't.

You're allowed to alter your own characteristics. Dye your hair orange. Take on a new sport. Learn how to cook Indian food. If you're not satisfied with the way your life is, change it. You don't have to keep waiting until a new year rolls around in order to get things done.

A/N: I'm aware that it's not the 2nd of January anymore, but that's when I started formulating this post. I originally wrote an entire blog post about my actual New Year's resolutions, but then I realized how pointless they were so I rewrote this. I hope this is still a valid topic to discuss even though we've been in 2016 for 5 days now.