Happy New Year?
New Year’s Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
Mark Twain
Maybe it’s just a series of unfortunate events that are happening at the wrong time. Maybe I’m turning more into a pessimistic scrooge the older I get. Either way, this year I have come to the realization that the saying ‘Happy New Year” is not a statement but more of a wish, a faint hope that you will start the year off on a good note and leave the shit from ’09 behind.
My last few days of 2009 started off with the usual ambitious mindset. I came up with a mental list of resolutions that include: work out at least twice a week, find a job in my industry, don’t get worked up so easily with my boyfriend who has mastered the art of making my blood boil in less than two seconds, and to of course blog more often. I thought of all the changes that I would be making once the new year rolls around such as moving to a new apartment and having a new roommate, and how these changes will help me start the new year on a new and exciting path. Virtually every part of my life will be changing in 2010 and I was taking this on with excitement and high hopes.
But then January 1st rolled around. Then the 2nd and then the 3rd. And none of my resolutions have even come close to taking affect. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in cardboard boxes and sorting through clothes that I haven’t even worn in two years, while working and being distracted with a possible change in my relationship status (cause why wouldn’t that change too during my total revamp of my life into the new decade?) This has been a new personal record for me for not obtaining my new years goals. Usually it lasts a month, some times two, but to have never even started yet… that’s a bad sign.
My point is, I understand the use of January 1st as a way to feel ambitious and start anew with many things. But how many people actually accomplish an entire year of their resolution as compared to those who give up on it shortly after? I wonder what the average length of time is until someone realizes that their resolution, as good and important as it may be, is just not going to happen. And how does this actually make someone happy? Surely, when someone’s goal is to lose fifty pounds at the end of the year and they only lose half of that or when another person buys their first pack of cigarettes after having the shakes and eating a chocolate bar a day for two weeks, they can not feel good about themselves. Thus, New Years is not happy. It’s a falsehood; an illusion for better things to come; a temporary change in your life only to leave you disappointed in the end.
With that said, I wish everyone a happy New Year and not just that, but a happy mid-year and end-of-the-year. And even if your January starts off rocky, like mine, I wish you a happy February and every other month to come.
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