There’s something in the air when the year ends. December comes to a close and January taps us on the shoulder asking, “What’s next?” Many of us craft a list of New Year resolutions in response. 

It’s good to want to grow and the new year is a great time to reflect on how we’d like to move forward, but overwhelmingly, people do not meet their resolutions. For many, by the time April rolls around, our goals are forgotten, discarded ideas of what was supposed to be. Life takes over, the semester picks up, and little by little, your grand plans to try new things, get in shape, or save money are no longer a priority. 

I used to feel frustrated, blaming myself for not meeting the aspirational resolutions I made for myself twelve months earlier. I would turn inward, caught in a spiral, questioning why year after year I failed. The problem is when you start and end every year thinking about how you’ve failed, you just start to feel like a failure. My experience isn’t exclusive to me. Less than ten percent of Americans actually complete their resolutions, and half of us quit by the end of January. If the majority of people do not meet their goals after four weeks, maybe it’s not that we’re failing. Perhaps, by design, we were never set up for success in the first place. 

As a collective, we fall into a trap where we think that we are going to become better people because we have decided as much. Somehow, each year, we fall for the delusion that we will wake up and decide to become shinier, refurbished versions of ourselves. Setting goals is a good practice, but often we set goals that aren’t realistic to begin with. They are vague commitments to big changes and we feel let down when we don’t follow through. 

I think the hope of a new year makes January first feel like anything is possible. I want to cherish that, but I don’t want to plan my life around it. When the holiday magic dies down and the clock strikes midnight, our lives are usually no substantially different than they were twenty-four hours before. Your life is still your life; the new year doesn’t wash away the everyday challenges and stressors of living. We still have jobs to go to, classes to attend, and internal battles to struggle through. It’s not that we don’t want to meet our goals. It’s not that we don’t have the willpower to follow through. We just fail to be realistic about who we are and the circumstances. Let me explain. 

Committing to the gym is by far the most popular resolution, and it usually sounds something like, “I’m going to go to the gym every week at least twice.”  Here’s my question –why would you challenge yourself to go to the gym two times a week when for the last twelve months you haven’t been able to go once a week? If you read one book last year, why are you committing to reading twelve this year? I’m weary of making promises to myself that are impossible to keep. 

I also struggle with resolutions because it doesn’t ask us to take stock of how we have grown. There are a million things I would like to be better at, but if I look back to where I was a year ago, I start to question why I’m looking forward and not celebrating my progress. Last fall semester I struggled a lot. In what was the worst depressive episode of my life, I completely collapsed. A year ago I finished my semester glued to my parents’ couch, unable to do much but sleep, cry, and watch every episode of Bob’s Burgers in a depressive fog. A year ago I did not think I was going to be writing a blog for my university because, in all honesty, I was convinced I would have to drop out. I didn’t, obviously, but I did spend months with professionals, slowly clawing my way out of what felt like never-ending despair. Somehow I’m not just graduating this spring, but I’m graduating as a double major with summa cum laude. I’m graduating with great friends, experience working with fantastic professors, and so many new skills. I say all this because I forget to give myself credit, and I’m sure a lot of other students do too. 

I refuse to honor the person who fought to get to this new year with a bulleted list of ways to be better: pilates, green juice, perfect grades, and more savings. I’m not arguing that you give up on New Year’s resolutions. I want you to set goals for yourself, but I also want you to give yourself credit because life is hard. College, no matter the circumstances, is hard, but here we are, making it through. if you want to make resolutions I advise that those resolutions be attainable and reasonable and that they respect the progress you’ve made. Growth is slow, habits are hard to build, and we don’t do ourselves any favors if we ignore that. As the calendar flips over, you are still you, and I am still me.

To be frank, I am not going to sit at the pulpit and plead to a shining ball in Times Square, begging to be reborn. I will not walk under yesterday’s moon, suffocating under the pressure of becoming something better under tomorrow’s. I could fill vast cavities of space with ways in which I need to be different. Or, I could trust that I will become better as I go because that’s what I did last year and every year before that. 

This new year, I’m giving myself permission to slow down. I will tend to my garden and give myself space to breathe because if there is anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that life is hard to predict, and we only have so much time.

So, what are my New Year’s resolutions? I want to treasure my last months of college. I am going to waste time in the library and make lattes that have way too much sugar in them. I resolve to find a new song to love and a new recipe to cook for my parents. I promise to stay up far too late sitting on back porches and lawn chairs with my friends memorizing what it sounds like when we laugh because time moves fast and I don’t want to take these moments for granted. 

Go ahead and make those resolutions, and then congratulate yourself. I’ve made it through this year, and so have you; even if that’s all you’ve accomplished this year, that’s more than enough. 

 

By Milo Heard