By Rachel Garvey
As we welcome in the New Year of 2019, we also embrace our New Year’s Resolutions with hesitant open arms. Semester two is also upon us and with that comes the commitment to study and work harder, but do we really? We always promise ourselves every year that we will stick to our New Year’s Resolutions but before we know it, we welcome our bad habits back into our lives again but not as hesitantly.
I applaud the people who stick to their promises, who don’t let themselves slide backwards into their old habits. However, a few words of advice for the people who find themselves sliding downhill when they attempt to better themselves this New Year: it’s okay. We fail but we pick ourselves up again and strive to do harder.
We won’t reach our goals by not facing challenges that hold us back along the way. In order to learn how to work harder we need to face these challenges that will bring us to our final goal. The whole concept of the “New Year New Me”, in my own opinion, is merely based on a theory that people think will help them change for the better. It’s all in our heads, if we want to change ourselves by being healthier or more hardworking or taking up a new hobby or sport then why don’t we make these changes whenever we want? However, it understandable to start in the New Year because it gives us the idea that we are starting off right and it gives us the hope and motivation to make this change stick.
Do those changes ever really stick though? I remember starting off last year with the motivation to start eating healthy, exercise more and write a little bit everyday as well as volunteering for various events and making a bigger effort in my studies. Quite ashamed to say none of those resolutions lasted. Okay, some of them did happen like writing and volunteering and a little bit of the studying harder but eating healthy lasted only a little while. Fruit and vegetables and salads are great and all that, but chocolate is my love, it’s simply a necessity for me.
Oh well, it’s not the end of the world. If you want to eat chocolate then indulge in it, if you want to join a gym and get fit then go for it, if you want to take up a new hobby and end up not liking it and giving it up, that’s okay. The “New Year New Me” thing doesn’t necessarily have to be centred around doing better and being better in what you do. It should be the open door that presents new possibilities that allows you to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, it should allow you to have the power to fail at something and then be able to pick yourself up afterwards.
Be who you are and what you want to be, at whatever time in your life. Don’t let the New Year determine what you can and can’t do. Don’t make promises to yourself that you can’t keep, because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Yes, it is a New Year but everyday should be taken as it comes. 2019 will be a good year, but whatever you do, don’t let 2019 determine whether you should cut back on chocolate or not!
Image: Marco Verch via Flickr
