The Real Outcomes of Your New Year’s Resolutions

The first month of the year is officially over and done with. Unfortunately, for most of us that means so are our New Year’s resolutions. I know the moment the clock struck midnight you had all you’re resolutions perfectly planned out. Some of you may have even written them down and taped them to your mirror or fridge because you’re just that committed.
               
Then the initial New Year euphoria wore off, and that list of things you have yet to accomplish is now watching you with a look of smug criticism equivalent to that of your best frenemy. You had a really good start, you reason, but things came up, you got busy, etc. You gave it your very best, you lie, knowing perfectly well that your resolutions went something like this.
 
Resolution Number One: Get in Shape
               
You paid that gym membership fee with the image of your face on Jessica Alba’s (pre-pregnancy) body emblazoned in your mind as your goal. You stroll confidently into the gym with your new Reebok Easytone shoes on your feet and your favorite upbeat song blasting in your ears. Then you try to locate an open treadmill before another young, New Year’s Resolution driven hopeful can. You find one. You set the treadmill at a slow pace for thirty minutes to pace yourself of course. You start off strong, but before you know it, you’re panting and there’s a sharp pain in your rib cage. You look at the amount of time you have left. To your dismay you’ve only been running for five minutes. But you can’t give up. So you push yourself to complete the full half hour. You walk off the treadmill and try to remember how to work your legs. Without glancing at another machine, you wobble home, and collapse on your bed, thighs throbbing. You haven’t been back to the gym since.

Resolution Number 2: Eat Healthier
               
With the get in shape resolution out the window, you decide that the only way to cover the stench of failure is to double up your efforts on that new diet. You replace your potato chips with snap peas and buy almonds because you’re pretty sure Dr. Oz said something about the health benefits of nuts.  Your dinner is the old diet classic salad, followed by that bag of potato chips, a hamburger, and that piece of chocolate cake you found in the back of the refrigerator. Who put that there? 
 
Resolution Number 3: Meet more people
               
What better way to meet more people than in class. How hard can it be to make friends with the people next to you? You’re a friendly, average person, as far as they know anyways. You turn to the person sitting next to you and smile and try to start the usual college conversation: name, year, and major. The person continues the conversation until their friend joins them. They blatantly ignore you for the rest of class. Your hopes aren’t killed that easily, so you turn to the left. The kid to your left is majoring in something lame, like geology, and suffers from the delusion that everyone is as interested in the subject as they are. Unfortunately, this is the person you trade numbers with. You make plans with the friends you already have on Saturday night, and remember just why they’re your friends.
 

Resolution Number 4: Stop Procrastinating
 
You’ll get to that one, eventually.
 
But for now, the day is done.  You have reached the bottom of your list.

You trudge home dejected and defeated. As you open your refrigerator for a piece of humble pie, your New Year’s resolution list falls. You pretend not to see it slip under the refrigerator. You sit on your couch and watch TV. Your New Year’s resolutions are completely forgotten by February. Well, there’s always next year.