Anti-Resolutions (Jackpot January #4)

What is the half-life of a New Years’ resolution?

For the past few days, I’ve talked to many people about their New Years’ resolution, as you do in early January. When we ask each other this question, we’re not jut being polite or idly curious. Instead, we are playing a game. We perform an elaborate dance around the questions we really want to ask: Who do you want to be? How long will you try for? Can you really keep your promise?

Comfortingly, I’ve found that, like me, most people around me haven’t made any for themselves. Part of this is cynicism; they know they won’t keep their vow, so why bother making it? But even if you do make one, the fun of a resolution is that you know you probably won’t keep it.

This is why I hate Veganuary, Dry January, or any other iterations of short-lived ‘clean living’. Why bother to eat or drink consciously at all if you’ve promised yourself you’ll only do it for one month? Of course, for the individual it may make it easier to work up to a full conversion, but when these personal choices become social customs, I believe it actually encourages impermanence.

We all stop drinking alcohol or eating animal product for a month so we can feel good about all-out consumption the rest of the year. I remember in previous jobs that any January work events would deliberately be booked in a non-alcoholic environment. But where are the non-alcoholic options for the rest of the year?

My point isn’t that it’s bad to try and make a change, I’d never be that cynical. Rather, if you’re going to make a resolution, then make it. Don’t promise yourself you’ll change for one month and then just go right back to before afterwards. The magic of resolutions is in the mystery, the game you play with yourself where you pretend you’ll keep it and that you’ve changed forever, all the while knowing that the old ‘you’ is still lurking. We all relapse and try again, that’s the fun of it. Don’t take it too seriously.

But then again, if you insist on earnestness, on enacting your true will to change, then don’t make a resolution. They’re a game, not a path to self-actualisation. You chose a goal from the same list as everyone else: lose weight, start going to the gym, travel more, be more adventurous, make new friends, go out more, work harder. You centre your life around this goal for a while, and either it doesn’t stick at all or you add it to your routine, your enthusiasm for it wanes, and then you stop bothering. That’s how it happens for most people.

Which is why I find it refreshing and encouraging that I hear people say, “Why wait until a New Year if I want to change your life?” Resolutions are not a bad thing, nor is reflecting on the changes you want to make, but they are ritualised and short-lived. Because we so often choose from the same list, we so often make a resolution for appearances’ sake, resolutions can actually become a sort of distraction. To change your life, don’t get bogged down in an arbitrary goal, don’t get hung up on the image of the fitter, happier, hotter, friendlier you that you could be. Sit down somewhere quiet, let all the noise, the ideals, and the expectations die down, and ask yourself the only question worth asking, “What do I really want?”