"Live- that's the message! Yes, live! Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Auntie Mame (1958)
The tradition of resolutions is not new. Each year, we say goodbye to the old and welcome in the new, promising ourselves that we will be better versions of who we were- skinnier, smarter, more hardworking. We visualize the best possible versions of ourselves in our heads and say, this time I'll really do it. This will be my year.
There's nothing necessarily wrong with this- except that the tradition of New Year's resolutions indirectly means that we did not believe ourselves to be enough before. It's one thing to set a goal for the new year; it's another to believe that with the start of a new year one can be someone entirely new. You can wake up every single day and declare yourself a new person; a new year does not guarantee a new start.
I've had nearly the same two resolutions all my life: lose ten pounds and publish a novel. Last year, I graduated high school, got accepted to my dream university, published my first novel, and moved to New York City, somewhere I've wanted to live all my life. I also gained ten pounds, give or take. And come December, when I ought to be focusing on all of the things I accomplished throughout the year, the thing I thought about most was the way I looked in the mirror. The way my body fit into my clothing, the extra weight that clung to my hips, the way my jawline disappeared when I laid down. In spite of everything else I had done, the thing I thought about most was my body.
Come 2017, I wanted to set the same resolution. I wanted to promise that this was the year I would finally do it, would lose the weight, would become attractive- as if beauty is a thing dependent upon the way my body varies in a mirror. It sounds absurd to write, but this is a mentality that so many people live with all their lives. I've skipped meals, I've played sports, I've run miles and miles a day thinking this would make me happy. I've lost weight, I've gained it. And I was no happier then than I am now. In fact, this is the happiest I've been in a while. And yet.
And yet, every New Year's I find myself wanting to set that same resolution. Wanting to be pretty more than I want to be smart. Wanting to be thin more than I want to be accomplished. And I hate that fact about myself. I hate that it's something I'm not sure I'll ever be able to let go of.
So this year, I don't want to set any resolutions. I don't want to proclaim to be a person I'm not, or to focus on becoming someone new, as if the person I already am isn't good enough. I don't want to look back in five years and find myself still worrying about the same things, rather than having made a difference in the world. I want to focus on being the best version of myself every single day, and not just for the first few weeks of a new year. I am giving up the resolution, and with it, I am giving up the idea that I must constantly set promises to myself, absurd and unachievable promises that only leave me feeling let down later on. I'm doing the best I can every single day, and that ought to be enough.
Enough with the pressure to constantly become something new. Enough with the trends, and the resolutions, and the mentality that you cannot truly live your life until you have accomplished these goals. Go out now and live your life. Do not wait for next year to come around to do it.
