2022 is finally here and there are so many different things to look forward too within this new year. With that being said, the age old tradition of New Year’s resolutions are outdated and honestly, unrealistic. Every new year, society creates this narrative for themselves that they will become a better version of what they were the year before; however, most people fall back into their old ways pretty quickly because they never stick to their resolutions. Why is that? And who’s to say that we can’t make the decision to do better for ourselves any day of the year?

New Year’s resolutions began with the Babylonians 4,000 years ago. In the new year, they crowned a new king or they celebrated the old king. The promises that they made to do better were mainly to the Gods and not to themselves. The tradition has since been adapted because society nowadays makes promises to themselves despite the religious roots of the tradition. Examples of New Year’s resolutions that people often make are ensuring that they will go to the gym every week in the new year, promising to keep their house clean all year round and sticking to a routine that will keep them organized. Although these resolutions are honorable and motivating, life happens and sometimes we don’t have it within us to stick to these resolutions; and that is okay.

There are so many factors of life that we have to take into consideration. It isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Some days, we have to get out of bed in the morning when we really don’t want to. Other days, we have the energy to run a 5k. Honestly, we can’t create a routine for external concepts that surround us (such as keeping our room clean) if we are not healthy internally.

Personally, every year I have resolutions that I believe at the time will make me better. However, these resolutions don’t really make me better because my mindset is always the same as the year before. When things get hard, I always say that I had a terrible year at the end of it, forgetting all the good moments that happened within the year. I focus on the bad moments and that creates a negative construct in my mind of what the year was. Because of this, I have created a narrative of high school in my mind that is all bad; when in reality, I had a lot of fun throughout my time at McIntosh.

In summary, New Year’s resolutions are a good concept; nonetheless you can’t create said resolutions if you are not focusing on the real issues in your life. For example, my resolution for this year and every year moving forward is to change my mindset and focus on the good moments and not the bad. Since this is my last semester in high school, I want to practice this notion even more because I only have a small amount of time left with the people that I’ve grown up with and I don’t want those memories to be surrounded by negativity.