There’s one question I often ask myself around this time of year, and that question is, “why do I make New Year’s resolutions?” What is the point of it all? Do I need the excuse of a New Year to set goals for myself and strive to achieve them? Well I think the answer to that question is no. I don’t. All year long we should all be making these resolutions to better ourselves. There is absolutely no reason to wait until New Year’s Eve to compose a list of goals for ourselves to achieve in the New Year. Aside from that, I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that a large portion of people who make New Year’s resolutions don’t always follow through with them. That sheet of paper on which we composed them gets lost in the trash or among the several other important papers strewn all over our desk, and we move on to more important things and soon we find ourselves not holding true to those resolutions we made for the New Year. We sit at our desk eating the cookie that we resolved to give up for the New Year, or we still don’t talk to our best friend even though we said this year, we would make an effort, and without recognition, we are still, time after time, late for work, even though we resolved to be on time every single day. Nonetheless, we’re content because on New Year’s Eve we wrote down or mentally stored all the things we resolved to do in the New Year, and well, I guess that’s good enough. The end of that sentence brings me to my next point, which is that often people make New Year’s resolutions because we think it’s the common thing to do, but we don’t necessarily follow through with them, so why even make them?

Many of us feel like the New Year is a fresh start. However bad or good the previous year was for us, we see the New Year as a time to start over, to achieve even better things and become better versions of ourselves. Because we all want to strive to be these better versions of ourselves and have some sort of motivation, we make New Year’s resolutions. It’s kind of funny, but really all year long we are resolving to make New Year’s Resolutions for the next year.

I guess this article doesn’t really have a clear answer for you. It’s more of a rhetorical question, because what is the point of making New Year’s resolutions? We can tell ourselves that it’s the right thing to do because we want to improve for the new year, but I’m guessing a lot of us won’t follow through. Okay,okay, maybe you’re one of those people who take their New Year’s resolutions very seriously and you make sure they’ve all been accomplished before the next year rolls around, but I think that we’re all human, and sometimes what we resolve to do, just isn’t within our reach. So for 2017, think about what you want your New Year’s resolutions to mean. Make them realistic and work hard to achieve them because for 2018, I want to be writing about a concrete answer to this question, because surely there must be one. Happy New Year everyone, I hope this year is a good one.