New Year’s Resolutions: Helpful or Harmful?

Allie Highsmith, Herald Reporter

By making a New Year’s Resolution, most people believe that they will really follow through with what they have promised themselves and improve as a person. Resolutions often work, if the person is committed to what they have put themselves up to. If someone can complete their New Year’s Resolution, props to them!  But the hard truth is, most people abandon their New Year’s Resolution by the end of January.  New Year’s Resolutions set people up to fail.  By waiting until the New Year to make a change in life, people delay the changes that need to be made immediately, thus deciding their own failure.  If a change needs to be made, do not wait until the New Year to make it happen. Think about it. When you say you will get off your phone in five minutes, how often does that actually happen?  If you need to get off your phone and do homework, do it right then.  No one should need an opportunity to make a change.  In order to make something happen effectively, it needs to be done right then.  How often, when saying, “I’ll start homework in 10 minutes,” does that actually happen?  If it does, great.  But I know that I, for one, will continue to lay in bed for another half hour or so even when I tell myself I’ll start homework soon.  Until I decide to do something right in that moment, I’m essentially just lying to myself.  That’s what New Year’s Resolutions are to me: lying.  People who can follow through on their New Year’s Resolutions are truly impressive and I admire that ability.  I think, in 2017, people should begin to consider the possibility of changing their lives when they need to be changed rather than waiting until a certain point to decide to do so.