The last few months of every year are hectic. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, there is plenty of money spending, stomach stuffing, and most importantly, family gathering. Some of us rejoice in this time of the year, while others dread even the thought of it. No matter your opinion on the matter, the end of the year fills us all with anxiety on what the next year has in store for us.
Every year, there is a push for New Year's resolutions. They are on social media, the news, at work, and the list goes on. Everybody wants to look at the beginning of year as a blank slate so they can rewrite themselves for the better. Fact check though: it does not work this way. Just because a new year has started does not mean the past goes away. The human body is not made to completely change in little spans of time to satisfy others.
I am not saying that people cannot change who they are. People can do anything they put their mind to. Instead, I am saying that we should not limit ourselves by thinking up these unrealistic goals to impress our friends. A change in one’s being should not be to make others happy, it should be to make oneself happy. For example, the most common New Year’s resolution out there is weight loss. Every year, there is somebody out there we know who puts this resolution down on their list. Unfortunately, many of them fail. Why? Because they are trying to get fitter for the wrong people. People want to lose weight to wow their friends. The process of losing weight is slow, which means the external results may take months to actually show even though the internal results are there. Many give up because they are not impressing people. They may be healthier on the inside, but this bettering on the inside is overlooked because people are not changing themselves for the right reasons.
If we want real change, it has to come from the inside. Our want for change should exist because we want to better ourselves. This requires taking into account our past and understanding what we were actually doing wrong. By learning from our past instead of just trying to forget it, we will know the true thing we are trying to better ourselves of. So as we approach the New Year, lets make changes that are not only meaningful but also focus on the bettering of oneself from within.