Every year as December winds down I see people post photos, statuses, and Snapchats with the tagline “new year, new me.” People love the idea that on the first of January we reset our lives and have the opportunity to start again with the freshness of the new year. So here are some tips on how to become someone so far from yourself this year that even your family is going to question your existence.

1) Selfie

The first step to successfully changing yourself on the 1^st of Janurary with literally no effort at all is the New Year Selfie. Now for this selfie, and this is extremely important, you want to make sure you look exactly the same as you did in that selfie you just posted a minute ago that you captioned “Last Selfie 2016”. You need to make sure that each of your Instagram followers understands that you are not who you where one minute ago… even if you are. Because if you didn’t post it, did it really happen?

2) The Facebook resolution

Step two is taking it to Facebook, which is so 2015, but you have to get some variety. Type a longwinded status about all the ways in which you are definitely different from the person you were last year. Even type some resolutions you plan to follow in the upcoming weeks, because we know we’re all going to give up by week two anyway.

3) Live your life

Continue to be the same person you have been for the majority of your life. Because what’s newer than being the same?

Okay guys hope you liked my article… Obviously I’m kidding here. But it astounds me how many people fall into the notion that we can change ourselves so easily, or that we should want to. I’ll give it this: it’s a romantic idea – the idea that we can be anyone we want to be with the start of the New Year. That our lives could change with the cool freshness January air brings. But that’s not how things work.

There is something very problematic about the notion of “New Year, new me.” I think my hesitance with it is the idea that you can just be someone new. That you can completely let go of the person you once were and live as a new you. To me that just isn’t true – nor should it be. Change exists on a line of sorts. You move through versions of yourself. Each variation of you leaves it’s mark on the person you become and that is a wonderful thing. We grow through ourselves, not out of ourselves.

So, “New Year, new me” – that’s bullshit. Because we each end the year being, at least to some degree, the person we started the year off as. Because once the clock strikes twelve we don’t cease to be the person we were one minute prior. The ball doesn’t drop to change our lives- it drops to mark the new year, a new year in which we continue to grow.