I spent one of the last nights of my 2025 with a black ballpoint pen and a clean journal page, picking and prodding at my brain to determine what I could change about myself in the coming year. I investigated my internal and external flaws, contemplating how I could work on myself to be better. For who, I am not sure, but it was not myself.
Every year, the week-long lull in between Christmas and New Years sits plainly and heavily on people’s chests. Students are home for the holidays, often feeling the suffocation of the poster-lined walls of their childhood bedroom, sleeping in the same bedding they studied for their ninth-grade midterm in. This slow, mundane stretch of seven days invites us to think about the answer to the dreaded small talk topic: our New Year’s resolutions.
There are some constants when it comes to New Year’s resolutions. Less alcohol, more time in the gym, a healthy diet, 10,000 steps a day, better wardrobe, less time on social media, be kinder, be smaller, take up less space, reinvent yourself, find God, be a philosopher, save a dog from a burning building, cure cancer and solve world hunger. Easy peasy, right?
I am being hyperbolic. But my point paves itself. New Year’s resolutions are simply manifestations of our biggest insecurities and short-comings, masked in a goal-oriented agenda to help us patch up the internal unrest we feel within ourselves.
With the rise of gym and fitness culture, conservatism in fashion, “grandma core” and the deep-rooted ideology that we must be always evolving, changing and bettering ourselves, we have lost the true point of it all: to be messy and emotional and true. To be human.
People spend years of failed New Year’s resolutions attempting to chase contentment within themselves. That once they lose the extra weight, save the money and get the new sweater, life will somehow open itself up more to them. Here, peace becomes circumstantial and structured, rather than a state of being.
What we fail to seriously consider is our mortality on this earth. If we spend our time consumed in the thought that we are unworthy of love or happiness because we are not constantly evolving, we ignore the plain truth: death is imminent, unpredictable and final. We have an allotted amount of time on this earth and our obsession with bettering ourselves is eating it away.
Research suggests that only 9% of people actually follow through on their New Year’s resolutions. Nine percent. Good for them. As for the rest of the population, they have “failed” to tangibly better themselves. The number on the scale didn’t decrease and their screen time didn’t go down. And guess what? They are still deserving of happiness within themselves.
I’m not saying that goals are not important. Without something to strive for, life can feel purposeless and stale. What I am saying is that these goals should not be formed from a state of unworthiness or self deprecation. Life does not present itself when you lose ten pounds. Your ability to experience joy, travel, learn, dance and bask consumes you every day. Life is not something that you start living once you “fix” yourself. You are living right now, and your unwillingness to accept that fact is a guaranteed factor in your unhappiness.
I speak with my Nana Debbie often about how fleeting life can be. She is 81 years old and is mortally dependent on an oxygen tank. Without it, she would not be able to breathe. She carries around a battery-operated oxygen tank whenever she has to leave the house.
I never appreciated the ability to breathe until I saw her winded after a couple of steps, even with her oxygen on.
Our health will fail. Our bodies will be given back to the earth and our minds will be mere memory. If we do not appreciate life as we know it now, will we ever truly? Will the mindset of constant betterment ever offer us the true feeling of fulfillment?
At the end of the day, we are all still our souls. We have to live with ourselves forever, we might as well make amends with ourselves. My mom said something to me recently that stuck with me.
“If I could go back, I wouldn’t have worried so much about what others thought of me. I would have stopped trying to be perfect. I would have tried more things, gone on more adventures. I look back on pictures and I didn’t realize how beautiful I was,” she said, “I was always just trying to be enough so people I loved would choose me. If I had spent more time loving myself as I was, I would have seen that I was the gift.”
We don’t realize our beauty, our youth or our physical capability until it has surpassed us. A new year does not need to mean a new you. Your soul, mind, interests and light remain as complex, worthy and singular as they did the year before. We are not our accomplishments or our failures. We are our experiences, memories and souls. Do not spend the entire beginning of your new year chasing a version of you that is inauthentic. Live now, while life is buzzing around you waiting for you to grab it.
