As we just entered 2023, I want to start doing sports more frequently. I want to read x number of books within x months. I want to prevent procrastination from snapping my time away and study longer and that too on a daily basis. I want to quit eating junk food and not touch a pinch of sugar. I definitely do not wish to argue with anyone and especially not get into conflicts with my dear ones. Because it is a new year and of course, that means it must be a new me. Or does it not?
I have never ardently believed that a 31st full of habit swings can convert into a 1st full of instantaneous novelties. I just think that each time people talk about new year’s resolutions and start listing ideas on things they hope to see or do differently, the realist in me takes the upper hand. I am not even sure if it is being realistic or just less drawn towards the symbolic need for a new year to grow or degrow into habits. Maybe, it is both.
How many of us have not either heard someone talk about their desire to completely get rid of a practice that is not contributing to their definition of a healthy life or have led a conversation in which we are in that position ourselves? Sometimes, I think and wonder, if it is not one of the few signs of innocence we have left as human beings. I ponder if it is not the naïve side of us, which believes that erasing a number by overwriting another one will facilitate the creation of a freshly baked version of oneself. Be it our belief that we do not need to warm up before starting the run towards habit creation as well as abandonment or constant pardoning of habitual indifference on our ‘old’ track because we have not reached the new starting point yet, I sometimes think that we underestimate the importance of building up consistency and discipline over any given time and instead let our calendar steer them.
But saying that, I somehow do understand our emphasis on the representational ending and beginning of time. There is a part of me that recognizes the weight we give to symbolic settings. Because let’s be honest, there is nothing clearer and more traceable than the start of a fresh year. The reset button in the form of a new year could support and motivate us. It could function as a driving force to focus, reflect, and act on incentives after phases of, perhaps, losing track or getting overwhelmed amidst the daily chaos life keeps throwing at us.
Does the concept of new year’s resolutions not scream individualism? There is this one section of individuals who is determined to adopt or quit practices once the reset button has been pressed. But there is almost certainly that other half, which solely feels pressure to forcefully compile a set of habits before the world gives them the feeling of humankind running out of time. So, how do we define what is right and wrong? Is there a right and wrong? I doubt. Subjectively, we can be eager to write down everything we are aiming towards in the new year, or we can be the complete opposite and take a pen into our hand, unaffected by time and zone. But, regardless of distinct perspectives and approaches, we can all have one commonality – reaching the smallest to biggest goals by fostering our discipline and striving for consistency.
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