When it comes to resolutions, the start of a new year gets a whoppingly unbalanced share of the focus. Everyone goes around promising themselves a new lifestyle each January 1 just because there was a shift in the last digit on their calendar. And by each February 1, most of those promised lifestyle changes have fallen completely by the wayside.
This is 2013! In the words of everyone’s favorite YouTube celeb with an adjective for a first name, ain’t nobody got time for yearlong resolutions! In this age of goldfish-level attention spans, society needs a fittingly goldfish-level genre of lifestyle changes, and I am here to bring it to you: New Month’s Resolutions.
Sure, the current month technically started, like, roughly a week ago, but small matters like these are of no import to New Month’s Resolvers. New Month’s Resolutions are concerned with making this moment less terrible than the last – whether those moments are measured in weeks, days, halves of a semester, or what I see to be the perfect increment: months.
How, then, should one structure one’s New Month’s Resolutions? Well, I’d suggest you model your quest in some way after the rather blandly generic Big 3 resolutions I’ve given myself this month, reproduced for your reading pleasure in the paragraphs below.
1. Unless you have an actually compelling reason for the contrary, wake up every day before 9:00 AM. Depending on your class schedule and general level of self-motivation, this may be something that you already do. For most of us, though, morning wake-up time coincides as closely as possible with the start of the first class of the day. And when you start class each day at 12:30 (if anyone other than me falls into this category, please, let’s be friends), sleeping in to embarrassingly slothful levels becomes a real threat. Compelling reasons, by the way? They do not include hangovers on a weekday if you have homework left to do.
2. Wash your hair every day. Now, seeing this sentence and knowing literally anything about the person writing it, you may assume that this second resolution is a self-deprecating little joke. It is not. Women of Notre Dame, I see your hair-covering baseball caps. I see your scarf-sized hippie headbands. I know I’m not the only person who gets occasionally regularly lazy with regards to hair care, and I know this will be ever truer as we approach finals. This resolution is my challenge to myself for the month of November, and I urge you to join me in it.
3. Do your homework. Like, basically all of it. I will openly admit what I’ve had two or three respected professors admit over the years: sometimes, there are just not enough hours in the day to read every single page of reading given to a student by her five or six classes. I will also admit, though, that there are a lot more hours available each day for me to do homework than there are hours in which I actually do it. This month, I will call a halt to my practice of starting each day with a “quick Facebook check” and making it to class three hours later with no clue what my homework was but an in-depth understanding of my current crush’s one thousand tagged photos. I may not finish every page of Infinite Jest, but, by God, I will do my homework this month to the very best of my high-school-valedictorian abilities! I will make 17-year-old Sarah proud.
See how easy those are? Just think of it – people with their lives not actually in perpetual shambles already do these simple tasks every single day! While committing to waking up pre-9am every day for a year may be daunting, I assure you, you can handle it for one short month. Happy New(ish) Month, my friends – and may your resolve be ever strong.