This year was about a week old when I realized that I had entirely forgotten about the whole “New Year’s resolutions” deal. That’s quite a shame considering the fact that my previous resolutions of not dying and not causing anyone else’s death had proven to be really successful.

But it just so happens that making resolutions actually ended up on the bottom of that to-do list of mine that seems to be the home of black holes in which items slip and stay stagnant for any given amount of time, and I’m going to focus on what is on the top of my list. I need to take the trash out.

That is my point. I won’t argue that making resolutions at the dawn of a new year will give you cancer, or that it is an invention of Kim-Jong Un as part of a certain evil plan, but it simply might not be for everyone. Some will find great comfort in making resolutions, setting goals for themselves and I even heard of some people actually holding their resolutions a whole year — that one time.
In my case, resolutions rhyme with a cruel, low peak of self-esteem in February when I suddenly remember, a bag of chips in my hands, the old promises that I had made to myself and have violated a good amount of times since then. That, of course, is followed by a hard retrospective reevaluation of my worth as a member of society and an overall pretty
miserable time.

Yet that does not lead to my suddenly staying any truer to future resolutions, nor does it make me a cureless defect of society with no aspiration in a life of despair. If some find success in using yearly timeframes to organize and encourage their productivity or happiness, others find it by taking tasks one at a time, regardless of the time of the year. The yearly goals can be overwhelming in proportion. I don’t know what this new year has in store for me quite yet, and I would rather worry about what will make today a good day, what are my goals for the next few days. If anything more than a very abstract system put in place by men to explain and quantify the movement of planets, the amount of daylight and of gray hair, time measures seem to me like they are the most useful when looking back at the
past achievements.

But there is also this restrictive side of resolutions that makes dieting and being nice a task that one has to impose on him or herself to not disappoint an authoritarian ego fueled with the consciousness of society’s standards and conformism, hammered today more than ever by their good old television. This television that also takes the time to conveniently push Nicorette commercials, well aware of the new avalanche of delusional as well as genuine attempts to quit smoking after a nice show of fireworks.

Oh, and then there is that fantastic beach body you need to work on before the sunny days pop back. But what if there were genuine joy and happiness to be found in good healthy food, in sharing more and reading more? Instead of pushing expectations and working to avoid self-disappointment, one can set one simple goal for this year and for all the years: simply to live happily and find out everyday what gets you there.
If those require you to have a fit schedule, partitioning your personal expectations and registering your achievements for the sheer satisfaction of marking something off, so be it. But if it has to start with “taking the garbage out” rather than “be a better person,” feel no
shame, get happy.