Most of these links on Facebook or Twitter you have been opening the past week or so have been a list of New Year’s resolutions, goals for 2017, or ways you can actually carry out your resolution through a particular company or organization. I’ll save you some trouble from reading any further and go ahead and let you know, this article is one of those articles, sort of.
I’ve never been a huge believer in New Year’s resolutions, just because they rarely ever get resolved. For example, I’m sure gym memberships have increased steadily since January 1st. However, by February 1st, they will probably decline to the number they were before. You can have the membership card on your keychain or pay for the membership, but if you don’t actually utilize the membership, what good is your resolution to lose that five pounds?
Often people who don’t have resolutions just kind of drift into the new year with the same indifference they left the last. If your life is fine and you’re doing okay, then why change anything? Trust me, even I find it hard to break out of old habits or routine to change anything about my lifestyle, from the mug I drink coffee from in the morning to taking a particular route to my job. If it works, then I shouldn’t strain to make it better or by some chance make it worse.
I think I speak for myself as well as many others when I say that people are generally afraid of change. Of course, we all want to take that next step into whatever we think might make our lives better, but for most of us that step requires some sort of inconvenience or distress. So, the result is unaccomplished New Year’s resolutions and a general day-to-day schedule that we keep the same until an outside situation changes it for us.
Life catches up to us, and we’re caught in a whirlpool of activity and noise, forgetting our goals and resolutions. Then before you know it, Christmas comes back around and we’re all dumbfounded that the year went by so quickly. “Where does the time go?” we often ask ourselves. Our intended change fails to become implemented in our lives, and we find ourselves stuck in almost a traditional sort of routine.
New Year’s resolutions should not be a thing or at least should be redefined. Change shouldn’t have to require a time span or deadline. Our lives are busy and most of time, out of our control. That being said, implementing change takes a long time and a lot of hard work. We have to remember that time is relative; made up; a human-made recording system of how many times the earth travels around the sun. Change can happen over the span of five years or in an instant. To put a list of drastic changes underneath the limit of 365 days is unrealistic, especially since most of us forget that list pretty quickly.
You do not need an incentive or a goal to know what kind of person you are and who you want to be. It doesn’t take a genius to know you’re supposed to be kind to people or you’re not supposed to eat your weight every day. It’s common sense, actually. My advice to you is to stop writing the same goals down a piece of a paper that will eventually get lost, but to everyday be aware of you who are and you want to be. Change is awfully difficult to take on and control, and it is much easier to take baby steps into who you want to be. Instead of going from no exercise to owning a gym membership, take a walk or eat a healthy snack. Little changes are what count and what in the end amount to implementing those big changes that you want in your life.
