New Year’s resolutions should be year-round

VIRGINIA CALCAGNI  — Staff Writer
Lose weight, eat healthier, spend less money, quit smoking—all of these sound familiar, right?
At the end of every year people always come up to you and ask: “What is your New Year’s Resolution?” These are answers that you often hear (and you can tell because of all the gym commercials on television).
When people came up to me and asked me what my New Year’s Resolutions were going to be for 2012, I answered quite simply: I don’t have one. That is right, you read that correctly. I do not have a New Year’s Resolution.
One of my co-workers that asked me if I had a New Year’s Resolution was extremely curious as to why I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions, and the answer is quite simple: I don’t think you need to.
New Year’s Resolutions are supposed to be things people want to fix about themselves, or do to make themselves better in their eyes, and maybe also in the eyes of their peers.
If you want to make a personal change in yourself, you don’t need the excuse that you are writing a new date on your papers and checks. Every day should be looked at as an opportunity. If you want to make changes in yourself, why wait for a new year to come?
The more I really started to think about it, the more it came to upset me. People always say that they need to lose weight, have a better diet, find a job or quit smoking—make a change in their life that will make them feel like they are doing something. This is then replaced with “it was just a resolution and I don’t have the time or the will power and I give up.”
The gym is filled with people the first couple weeks of January, and then it slowly dwindles.
I understand it is tradition for most people to say that a new year is starting so it is a fresh slate, but the same problems you had yesterday are going to be there on Jan. 1. As a person you make a choice whether you want to make changes in yourself or not.
Change is at-times necessary, but that is something only the person who is changing can decide.
I have come to change a lot in my college years, little changes here and there, and it is all done based on how I want to shape my life. I feel as though this should be an outlook that people should reach toward.
I am not discouraging people from making changes or having a New Year’s Resolution. That is not the point. There are people who make New Year’s Resolutions that really stick with them, which I think is something amazing. But it also tells me they really want to make the change, and maybe the New Year was motivation.
I like to think of it in the way of the Nike tag line: “Just do it.” If you want to do something, you should go for it and nothing should stop you or get in the way. If you want to make a change, do it. Don’t just make a half-hearted promise to fill a conversation.
Do something for yourself every day of the year. You do not need a New Year’s Resolution to do that.
Lose weight, eat healthier, spend less money, quit smoking—all of these sound familiar, right?
At the end of every year people always come up to you and ask: “What is your New Year’s Resolution?” These are answers that you often hear (and you can tell because of all the gym commercials on television).
When people came up to me and asked me what my New Year’s Resolutions were going to be for 2012, I answered quite simply: I don’t have one. That is right, you read that correctly. I do not have a New Year’s Resolution.
One of my co-workers that asked me if I had a New Year’s Resolution was extremely curious as to why I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions, and the answer is quite simple: I don’t think you need to.
New Year’s Resolutions are supposed to be things people want to fix about themselves, or do to make themselves better in their eyes, and maybe also in the eyes of their peers.
If you want to make a personal change in yourself, you don’t need the excuse that you are writing a new date on your papers and checks. Every day should be looked at as an opportunity. If you want to make changes in yourself, why wait for a new year to come?
The more I really started to think about it, the more it came to upset me. People always say that they need to lose weight, have a better diet, find a job or quit smoking—make a change in their life that will make them feel like they are doing something. This is then replaced with “it was just a resolution and I don’t have the time or the will power and I give up.”
The gym is filled with people the first couple weeks of January, and then it slowly dwindles.
I understand it is tradition for most people to say that a new year is starting so it is a fresh slate, but the same problems you had yesterday are going to be there on Jan. 1. As a person you make a choice whether you want to make changes in yourself or not.
Change is at-times necessary, but that is something only the person who is changing can decide.
I have come to change a lot in my college years, little changes here and there, and it is all done based on how I want to shape my life. I feel as though this should be an outlook that people should reach toward.
I am not discouraging people from making changes or having a New Year’s Resolution. That is not the point. There are people who make New Year’s Resolutions that really stick with them, which I think is something amazing. But it also tells me they really want to make the change, and maybe the New Year was motivation.
I like to think of it in the way of the Nike tag line: “Just do it.” If you want to do something, you should go for it and nothing should stop you or get in the way. If you want to make a change, do it. Don’t just make a half-hearted promise to fill a conversation.
Do something for yourself every day of the year. You do not need a New Year’s Resolution to do that.