NEW BEGINNINGS, MY FOOT

I’ve always had a problem with New Year resolutions—I’ve never really understood the point of them, and I’ve never really subscribed to the belief that a new year meant ‘a new me’. I mean, ‘a new me’, really? What does that even mean? On the 31st of December, you’re a certain way—okay let’s take me for example—lazy, unmotivated, stuck on my beautiful, lovely, wondrous bed most of the time. Then comes 1st January, I’m a changed person and I’m out there doing 50 laps in the pool a day? Come on, it’s unrealistic; it never works like that. Perhaps I’m just bitter that I’ve never been able to keep to any New Year resolutions (once, I wanted to lose weight—look how that turned out), but I think I’m making a valid point here.

In my very honest opinion, change doesn’t just happen overnight like that; it’s a gradual process that one must treat with patience. People really shouldn’t be setting unrealistic New Year resolutions, then blaming their inability to keep to them to a variety of excuses that don’t really make sense. Okay, I’m not trying to discredit all the people out there who notice that there’s an area for improvement in their lives, and want to do something about it. I’m just trying to say that people need to take it easy, take it slow and be patient with themselves. Instead of saying ‘I want to lose 10kg by the end of the year’ and leaving it as that, perhaps start with saying ‘I’ll exercise twice a week’. Or if you want to be a nicer person this new year, maybe instead of setting ‘I want to be sugar, spice and everything nice’ as your resolution, start by being less mean to a single person—someone easy—first, before trying to turn into Mother Theresa. Well, I’m talking like I’m an expert at these things (I’m really not), and perhaps you shouldn’t take any of my advice (really, don’t), but I’m just trying to proffer some suggestions to people who are really into New Year resolutions.

It’s also truly puzzling to me that people only want to start changing things about themselves when a new year comes. If you think something about yourself needs to be changed, why not change it the moment you notice it, instead of waiting for the new year to come around just so you can set it as a ‘New Year resolution’ only to never fulfil it? For instance, if you realise you’re an gross unhygienic person who’s never had the habit of showering daily, for goodness’ sake, don’t wait until 2018 to stop stinking up the whole house. Please start changing things up now. Of course, I don’t expect you to change overnight—we’ve been over this; it’s just not possible—but starting to do something to lessen your stench now is always better than starting later, isn’t it? My point is, you don’t have to wait for the new year to come around before resolving to change things about yourself. If you can start now, why not?

Then there’s the thing that annoys me the most—the group of people who set New Year resolutions year after year, but NEVER, ever start working towards them. I mean, if you’ve at least tried to keep to your resolutions, then I say to you, goob job, well done. But if you’ve never even tried, then I say, just stop. Why waste your time coming up with a whole bunch of things to do when you know very well that this list of so-called New Year resolutions is never going to see the light of day? Gosh, stop lying to yourself and thinking that this year it’ll be different—it’s not, because you’re not trying.

I’ve come to the end of my pointless rant (like your New Year resolutions), I’m sorry if I’ve offended anyone. But then again, I’m really not.