By Niki Taneja
When the new year is rung in, the tradition is to kiss that special someone you’ve had your eye on all night and set some cliché goal for yourself on which you never actually follow through. We make these resolutions in hopes to add some positivity to the start of our year and to motivate ourselves for the better. “New Year, New Me” is what most hope to accomplish with these resolutions, but what seems to happen is a case of disappointment by the time March comes around.
The most common trend is the “I’m going to start going to the gym.” I’m a victim of that fallout, as I used to set this infamous goal for myself. I would start off strong by working towards my goal every day. But as mid-January came along, I began to slow down and tell myself, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” Tomorrow turned into the day after tomorrow and before I knew it, the entire month had gone by.
The point of new year’s resolutions are to learn from the mistakes of the past year and improve for the current one. Starting off the new year with a goal you know that will never be followed through on shows no positivity. We begin the year with a false sense of optimism and soon enough, we realize that our goals were not realistic. Society does a lot of comparing and we tend not to realize what is manageable for our lifestyles. Just because someone is able to take five units of classes doesn’t mean everyone else can. Some people work, or have athletic commitments while going to school. We can’t keep basing our standards off of others’ standards. We become hard on ourselves and feel that we are not good enough. This completely negates the point of a New Year’s resolution.
At the same time, challenging yourself is a good thing. It helps you step out of your comfort zone and build self-confidence by discovering that you are able to accomplish something you may have never imagined possible. Nowadays, people tend to set those goals because it’s the “thing” to do and because of that, the resolutions don’t hold a substantial amount of meaning. The point of setting a New Year’s resolution is to try something new and be a little courageous and challenge yourself, but if the challenge is unrealistic then you will ultimately fail.
Maybe next year, we can all set some realistic goals, causing the negativity to end and bring some positivity with accomplishing something new. This new year, we should stop comparing and letting disappointment control us. Because isn’t the idea of a new year to bring some new happiness and adventure into our lives?
Students share opinions around campus
Are New Year's resolutions good?
“They’re a fun thing to do... it all depends on the person.”
“(Resolutions are) some things (that)people want to do... but (many resolutions) break through by February.”
