So it’s Jan. 1 and you’re sitting on the couch in pajamas, having woken up just in time to watch the fourth rerun of the Tournament of Roses Parade. You’re soothing that massive hangover with some water and leftover Cheetos when you begin to remember all those resolutions you made. Lose weight, don’t procrastinate and stop wasting so much time online – ambitious much?
The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions started, like most things, with the Romans. In Roman mythology, the god Janus had two faces: one looking backward and one looking forward, which allowed him to see into both the past and the future. The Romans associated this with making resolutions, and when Janus was chosen to head the calendar in 153 B.C., the new year became synonymous with resolution-making.
Thus, every year Americans make these little self promises, only to break them as quickly as a leg in a Joe Pesci movie.
The other day, I was sitting with some friends when the topic of resolutions came up. “”My New Year’s resolution was to become a vegetarian, but I kind of forgot and ate a hamburger Jan. 2,”” one friend laughed. Nice.
A weight-loss resolution is probably the most common, what with the freshman 15 and all. So it’s no wonder there is a spike in gym and diet commercials at the start of the year – everyone can recognize that it’s better to eat healthy foods and stay fit. Millions of Americans each year pledge to work out more and eat less. But obesity is steadily increasing: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 66 percent of American adults are considered overweight, which makes it pretty clear that the vast majority of people aren’t sticking to their eat-better-and-go-to-the-gym goals.
“”Don’t procrastinate”” is another big one, especially among the college crowd. It’s lumped in with all those other academic goals. You know: Do all the assigned reading this quarter, study more, don’t miss class. We all know what we should do to succeed in our classes. But no one is actually going to skip a movie night with friends to start working on a paper that isn’t even due for another two days. I too made the resolution to stop procrastinating, but regardless of the fact that I had a month-long break to write this column, I left it until the day before production. (Sorry, Nathan.)
Along with not procrastinating, many Internet junkies will challenge themselves to break the addiction in 2007. But using the Web is inevitable, and thanks to the geniuses behind YouTube.com and Facebook.com, distraction runs rampant. These sites grab our attention and suck us in like moths to a flame. It’s amazing how one moment I’ll be researching something simple for an article, and glancing at a clock I realize that I’ve spent the last two hours watching YouTube base-jumping videos. How productive.
I don’t know how things went down in ancient Rome, but in contemporary America, the New Year’s resolution appears to be much more for thought than action. January is really just a time to evaluate the things in our lives that we should change, and then feel that we’ve made a step in the right direction by listing them. As I tell myself each January: baby steps.
Yes, it would be ideal to lose that extra weight, stop leaving responsibilities to the last moment and step away from the computer, but that just isn’t realistic. Despite a little extra padding, we’re still able to accomplish things just the way we are. So why strive for perfection? If you’re anything like me, you’ll make 10 resolutions, and break all but three. Like it or not, chances are if you haven’t broken your resolutions already, you will by December – or February, for that matter.
So if come Jan. 1, 2008, you find yourself on the couch watching the Rose Parade, still eating junk food and procrastinating, I say: Pass the Cheetos, brother. There’s always next year.
