The other afternoon I was sat in my pyjamas, having gotten out of bed at a shameful hour of the day, watching the toothless and the unemployed shout abuse at Jeremy Kyle. When the inevitable adverts arrived, I was about to tuck into some leftover Christmas chocolate for my ‘breakfast’, but I was stopped in my tracks by a smiling woman lifting weights in her living room. I waited for her judging face to leave my TV, only to find that it was replaced by something much worse. Salad, vegetables, and all things green shouted down, leering from the black box at the girl sat in front of them who was contemplating having pizza for lunch. Again.
I realised that these adverts were only to be expected on the 2nd of January, where people all over the world were determinedly running to work instead of driving, or filling their fridges with red milk instead of blue. Which was great, but I just wanted to enjoy single-handedly polishing off a box of Celebrations before binge-watching 90210, without judgement. This led me to thinking – why is the world so obsessed with New Year Resolutions?
Firstly, they’re so clichéd; ‘this year I will quit smoking’, or ‘in the New Year I will lose weight’, or the obvious ‘I will definitely eat healthier this year’. I know that I have been a sucker for most of these, but my personal favourite is ‘I am definitely going to be more organised’. This is always proclaimed firmly, with the full knowledge that when I start uni again I will be stood outside the seminar room before a presentation, hurriedly reading through notes, hoping that something that I’d written the night before had gone in. There are those who do stick to resolutions, and a huge well done to you troopers, but more often than not you find yourself in November thinking ‘but the year started so well!’
Secondly, as I discovered in my quite frankly traumatic daytime advert experience, there is so much pressure in January to change who you are. The whole #NewYearNewMe idea is drummed into people’s heads, so much so that they find themselves searching for ways to change. We are asked ‘do you have any New Year Resolutions?’, and we franticly rack our brains for flaws that we can confess to, and can promise to change.
Finally, I fully believe that if there is something that you want to change, you should not have to wait until the New Year to do something about it. You are allowing yourself to live with something that makes you unhappy, because you are waiting for that one special day to change it. You want to quit smoking? Go for it. You kick that habit mid-November, for no other reason than you want to. You want to eat healthier? Grab that brown bread instead of white, you strong woman, you.
I think that New Year Resolutions are stupid. Don’t tell me I have to change my sleeping pattern or my Dominos habits just because I sign a different numeral at the end of the date now. Maybe I’ll go for a run this month, but only if I want to, not because January told me to.