The Dissolution of Resolutions

New year's resolutions for most people are quite pointless. Thousands of people spend more time making memes about how they failed at their resolutions, in the first week itself. I used to find myself in a similar situation until a couple of years ago aside from the meme making. At least those people were unashamed to share their failures to resolve.

I decided to skip the charade this year and take time to reflect on why the notion of making a new year resolution exists. It’s mostly people trying to give up bad habits or create good habits or finally reach the finish line on some project they may have initiated in the past.

Firstly, the fact that January is the beginning of the year is an arbitrary construct. We just as easily could have had the year start somewhere in May or June when most places come alive with the possibility of something fresh. Those musings aside, a better way to make some use of this artificial division of time is to reflect on everything you can remember from the year past.

Some occurrences brought us immense joy, some brought us pain. My only real strategy for the year is to double down on what affected my life in a positive way. Moving to a new country last year brought with it many new challenges. This was offset by the sheer joy of the discovery of a new place and its culture.

If you ask people about the most important change, they want to affect in their lives it would be some form of exercise. Not having any form of private transport in Prague meant using public transport and then walking a little bit to get to your destination. It’s amazing how this involuntary form of walking can add up. The point is that when even something light like walking is built into your routine it’s the best way kickstart your fitness goals.

Other non-physical habits can be even harder to form and keep going. The way I decided to deal with this is to think about the memory of something that made me feel good after the deed. If something drained my energy because of my analysis of it, I will be conscious of the time that I wasted on it. Bit by bit as you begin to eliminate the energy drains from your life and can focus on what gives you energy you are automatically a better version of the person you were last year.