Every year right after Christmas, the hoopla that is know as New Years Eve seems to take over. With the New Years Eve hype comes the absolute bombardment of New Years resolutions, New Years parties, New Years decorations, New Years outfits, and a plethora of other paraphernalia designed to satisfy our need to “ring in the New Year.” But after the clock strikes 12 everything remains more or less the same, and just like ever year prior, time just keeps chugging along.
I, like the majority of people, attempt to make a few New Years Resolutions. And no matter how much I tell myself to devote myself to it, I might only stick to it for a few weeks, and once March comes, I guarantee I’ll have given it up. If you ask me in May what my New Years resolutions were for the year, I can guarantee I will have no memory of any resolution I made for the New Year.
For me, New Years is a lot like Valentine’s Day. It’s one of those holidays that stores get more excited about than people. Stores know that people will be buying more alcohol, and candy, and goodies, and consumers don’t mind too much because after all it is for the sake of a good start to the New Year. There’s a lot of hype leading up to it, but once you actually get there, it’s rather disappointing. Furthermore, people seem to align in one of two camps: either they love the New Years celebration or they hate it, and there doesn’t seem to be an in-between. I have met both types, and one finds the best party and spends days in anxious waiting, and the other goes to bed at 10pm.
So why all the hype about New Years?
I think the answer is fairly simple. Everyone, myself included, is always looking for ways to improve. Maybe that ‘s learning not to procrastinate, or to lose five pounds, or be more compassionate, but whatever that improvement may be these people hope that this New Year, of completely unwritten, limitless possibilities will jumpstart their motivation to finally improve. And for a while, for most people, it does. But unfortunately, it rarely sticks. I think it’s mainly because after a week, the hoopla surrounding New Years dies down everyone slips back into their routines and the year just goes by.
This year, while I watch everyone make resolutions, I’m trying something different. I’m doing nothing. I’m going to just let the year go by, take what it brings me, and hopefully I continue to improve at a slow steady pace. Hopefully, I do some of those things I meant to do in 2015, and cut back on my vices, but hopefully I do it because of a genuine want to improve, not because a holiday told me I should.
