New Year, New Me?

So, guess what the most popular New Year’s Resolution is this year.

Lose Weight

And guess what the most popular New Year’s Resolution was last year.

Lose Weight

And guess what New Year’s Resolution I’ve made every year for the last as long as I can remember.

Yeah, you guessed it. Lose Weight.

If you’ve been anywhere near the internet the last few days, you’ve probably seen posts all over the place. ‘These are my resolutions’, or ‘I don’t make resolutions, but these are my goals’, or ‘resolutions and goals are the same thing, and I don’t make either’. I’ve seen a lot of posts, just about the new year in general.

I have a semi complicated relationship with New Year’s Resolutions, and New Year’s in general, that I’m guessing a lot of people can relate to. The intelligent part of my brain knows that there is no special magic to the dawn of a new year, nothing that will make it so that where there was no willpower before, there is now plenty to spare, no real truth behind the idea that somehow when the clock strikes midnight, everything will be different, you will be different, I will be different.

And yet…

Every year, even knowing all of those things, I make resolutions, tell myself that this is the year, that 20__ (or 19__ because hey, I’m old) is going to go down in my personal history as ‘when it all changed’. And years of doing this, and feeling like this, and having it most decidedly not turn out like this, has never really done much to deter me from making those same resolutions the next year. Heck, I’m pretty sure my list last year looked a lot like this:

Lose Weight

Eat Healthy

Exercise More

Save Money

Etc, etc, etc

But, 2014 and I were not the best of friends. Heck, 2014 and I were, at times, mortal enemies. And while I definitely worked on those things, I wouldn’t look at any of those goals and check of the ‘accomplished’ box next to them. The best thing I can say about 2014 is that it’s over.

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So, time to make some resolutions? Not really. Not the same way, anyway.

This year is different. I am different. Or I’m working on being different, I guess. I mean, are those all things that I would like to happen this year? Sure. I think those are very common things that a lot of people want, New Year’s Resolutions that a lot of people made this year. And I’ll work on making those things happen in some fashion. But in terms of making resolutions, I made just one.

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That’s it. To be happy. In the moment happy. Happy with myself, just the way I am, right now, happy. Happy with my life because it is amazing happy. Happy about the incredible family and friends I have happy. Happy because I have so damn much that how can I not be happy happy. Happy about the endless possibilities that come with being happy happy.

It’s so little. To be happy. But really, it’s so much.

2015 is here and I’m so happy about that. New year, new me.

Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? What are yours? 

 

 

5 thoughts on “New Year, New Me?

  1. I’m with you. Every year, I want to lose weight. Every year, I gain weight. But this year’s goal is to be honest with myself. Maybe by admitting to myself what I’m doing by overeating and overspending, it will be easier to actually do what I need to and end up losing weight and spending less money.

    • I think that’s a great goal, Megan! I think that often, the weight and spending are just the symptoms, so if we fix the root problem, those things just might right themselves 🙂

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