Milica's Chronicle
New year, new me?
It’s that time of the year again. The gyms are packed with people trying to lose 10 kg in 30 minutes and Buzzfeed articles, like “10 ways to stop procrastinating” and “Top tips for making your life healthier”, are massively being read. Overall, people are trying to change their lifestyles drastically. Why? Because the society believes that a new year means a new beginning. The past year was like a 365 page book which we just closed and now we are starting a completely new one. In order to make this year the best year of our lives, we promise ourselves that we will change all the bad habits we have been doing so far and live our lives to the fullest. But do we really fulfill our New Year’s resolutions?
December is the month when we are tired from everything we have been doing the past year and we just want to have a fresh start and a break. It is the time when we are under a lot of pressure due to, for example, exams or Christmas presents shopping. We are not thinking about eating healthy because the holiday season is basically a synonym for binge eating. We do not really have the will or the time to work out. Our lives are a mess at the end of the year.
That is why we see a new year as a chance to improve ourselves. We make all these plans to eat healthy, study harder and work out more. January starts off great-we are regularly going to the gym, counting all the calories and keeping up with our responsibilities. We finally feel like we have everything under control and that a new year really did bring many improvements to our lives. However, after a couple of months we start breaking some of our resolutions. One missed training and one visit to McDonald's are not so bad, are they? After all, we are humans and we have our wants and needs. The problem occurs when that one becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight and we become stuck in this cycle of promising ourselves that this is the last time we are breaking our resolutions even though we know it is not. By the end of the year we are aware that we broke all our resolutions and that there is no point in trying to keep up with them. After all, another year is around the corner so we should just wait for it to come and magically change our lives again.
Unfortunately, it does not work like that. January 1st is just another day on the calendar. Our lives remain the same even though we like to think otherwise. There is no point in starving ourselves in January when we are going to binge eat in February. Two hours of intensive training will not make up for all the laziness from the past year. Instead, we should try to improve our lives bit by bit, regardless of the time of the year. Abrupt changes in our diet or lifestyle are pointless because they will do more harm than good. You do not need to wait for January to set goals for yourself.
So, happy New Year everyone. I hope you have a good year and I hope you do not get caught up in the idea of fulfilling unrealistic New Year’s resolutions!