So I did some digging.
Turns out, among other things, the reason that January the seventeenth is statistically the most depressing day of the year is because that’s the point by which the vast majority of New Years resolutions have failed and people are just feeling pretty down about that. Now, about three years ago I made a New Years resolution to stop making New Years resolutions and it’s worked out pretty fantastically for me, but I can see how this can be very true of folks who lack my gifts of foresight and realism. New Years resolutions, as everyone knows, are little promises we make to ourselves that, beginning on the first, will help to alter our lives and ultimately make us better, happier people. Why we have to wait for the first of the year to do these things is beyond me, because as far as I’m concerned, if you’ve never been to the gym a day of your life or you’ve been binging on some addiction you’re planning to stop, the first of the year doesn’t make your slate any cleaner than it was the day before. Just sayin’.
Despite all that, however, it got me to thinking. People continue to make these things every new year, and every new year they continue to fail to keep them up for very long (say, about the seventeenth of January). So I decided to come up with a fun little list. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you…
The Top 3 Reasons Your New Years Resolution Will Ultimately Fail!
Number One: The first of the year is just the first of the year. It’s just another day, just like all the other days you didn’t kick your habit, go to the gym, lose thirty pounds or act nicer to your boss you hate. There seems to be some sort of misconception that the transition from the 31st of December to the 1st of January is some kind of mystical cosmic event that will empower you to change your life for the better in ways which you have been previously unable to. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. I understand the reasoning behind dedicating yourself to something like this because it’s a new year, and that Thursday in March the last time you thought about it was too far in to really count (or something, I guess) but the fact of the matter is, your body will still hate you for exercise, and it will still crave starch and unhealthy crap all the time. Your addiction will still be there and you’ll still be addicted to it, and your boss will still be an ass (unless his resolution was to be nicer to his employees, in which case you have a seventeen day grace period). There is no little mechanism in your body that’s going to say, “Oh, well y’know, since it’s the new year and all, I guess I can stop building up lactic acid that tortures you for working out, and maybe I can stop demanding McNuggets and Coke every day at lunchtime.” I’m not saying it isn’t possible for these goals to be attained. People do it all the time. But most people who make this kind of thing their resolution for the new year are under the subconscious impression that it will be easier to dedicate themselves to because it’s a resolution. It’s a crutch that will always snap beneath them and kick them in the face on the way down out of spite.
Number Two: New Years resolutions are the worst repeat offenders of the cardinal sin in changing lifestyles: Unreasonable goals. There’s an old idiom that goes something like “Always shoot for the moon, because if you miss, you’ll always land among the stars,” which essentially means “always aim really, really high because even if you fail, you’ll feel better for having tried.” Well, there’s a reason that “idiom” is only a single letter difference from “idiot” and while that reason is probably something more to do with a judgment lapse on the linguistics, I like to think it’s because idioms are a terrible way to live your life. More realistically, if you shoot for the moon, it just means that there’s a very long and painful fall below you when you miss before you crash resoundingly into the cement floor of reality. And you’ll probably hit a few trees on the way down, too. Let’s look at an example. A woman decides she’s had enough of being the human double-wide clogging traffic in the Wal-mart aisles, so she sets herself a goal to lose two hundred pounds. In a single year. As her resolution. Is this possible? Well, in today’s medical world where we have things like liposuction, companies that send you dietary meal plans with reasonable portions and an ever-expanding list of snake oil placebo- er, “dietary supplement weightloss pills,” sure. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that’s possible. Is it probable, though? Absolutely not. Chances are, our imaginary example woman will order some of those pre-made meal plan things, maybe pick up some placebo pills from her local GNC, go to the gym a couple of times in the month, and meanwhile she’ll continue to eat whatever she wants to outside of her meal plan. Because it’s what she’s programmed herself to do. Meanwhile, the days roll on and several outcomes arrive. Firstly, she probably won’t make it past the 17th on those pre-made meal plans because as anyone who’s tried them will tell you, they’re nasty. Real food (probably meaning the usual unhealthy junk she’s used to) tastes far better and costs far less. Second, if she does reach the end of the month, she’ll weigh herself and more than likely find that she’s lost a rather insignificant amount of weight. Discouragement will settle in and deliver the final coup de grace to her new years goals. The success of this goal will then ultimately fall to her income, because liposuction is really freaking expensive. And still isn’t a guaranteed success.
Number Three: The simple truth of the matter, regardless of what your resolution was, is that lifestyle changes are hard. And that’s what resolutions are. They’re lifestyle changes. Most of these decisions are made with the best intentions and usually backed by a little bit of alcohol, but the fact of the matter is it’s just so much easier to settle right back into the way we’re used to living. With new years resolutions, they tend to last as long as the excitement of the new year does. Which is about two weeks. Or a little under 17 days. When that’s over with, we’ve come to the realization I mentioned earlier that it’s just another year of our lives and whether we realize it or not, we fall right out of our resolution habits and back into our old habits. And when we realize that we’ve strayed from our resolutions, we sometimes try and run back to them but for the most part we just write them off as failures and go right on living the way we have been.
So when that magic seventeenth day of January comes around and you realize you’ve betrayed your resolution three times before the proverbial cock crowed, try not to sweat it so much. At least there’s next year. Unless you’re a Mayan, in which case you probably believe the world made a resolution this year to stop existing.
-The Sarcastic Soul-
No comments:
Post a Comment