The NEW New Year’s Resolutions

Credit: Forever Alone Comics

Today is the first day of the year, and you know what that means: everyone is starting their resolutions! My Facebook timeline has been filled with friends promising to work out more, travel abroad, think more positively, find new jobs and other fairly typical aspirations for this time of the year.

BORING. It’s not that I dislike these resolutions, but can’t we mix it up a bit? Wanting to plant a garden? That’s so 2010. Learning another language? Don’t even get me started. Want to yell at your kids less? Let’s face it, we all wish you yelled at them more.

This is why I’ve taken the liberty of writing new New Year’s Resolutions, the ones I hope people actually stick to this year.

“I’m going to stop taking pictures of my feet and posting them on Facebook.”

We all have one or two Facebook friends who take pictures of their feet: at the beach, with their legs propped up on a table/bed/small child, when they’re standing with friends in a circle and someone takes a picture from above. Look, I’m sure you feel as though the $25 you dropped to get a pedicure was well worth it, and you want to show the world how smokin’ hot your feet are. I don’t care how hard that woman worked with a pumice stone to get all of your nasty foot crusties off, nobody wants to see your bulbous toes while they’re munching on Bugles and lightly stalking their closest friends. Until your foot starts looking like Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper’s lovechild, you need to keep your foot fetish to yourself.

“I’m going to work less.”

So many people I know have a resolution to find jobs (or get promoted) which would require longer hours, less time with friends and family, and fewer hours of sleep. Why? Is becoming “Vice President and Global Director of Data Management, Paper Signing and Butterfinger Eating” really that desirable? Six months into your cushy new job you’ll be stressing about whether or not your boss will find out you’re really just a glorified paper pusher with an inflated job title. SOUNDS FUN TO ME. The windfall from a promotion is fun at first, but you can’t take that cash with you as you put yourself into an early grave.

“I’m going to spend less time with my family.”

Now I know I just said that one of the downsides of working more was that you wouldn’t get to spend as much time with loved ones, but what about those people whose families seriously suck? New Year’s is that special time when everyone seems to forget that their mother once shot them in the leg after a particularly heated game of Dance Dance Revolution, or how their brother stole money so he could buy an Xbox for his Methed out girlfriend.  Just because it’s a new year doesn’t mean people will wake up and suddenly think, “You know what? It wasn’t cool that I tried to run her over with my car because she drank the last Pepsi.”  Go take a yoga class, build a birdhouse or anything else that won’t require you to immerse yourself in situations similar to those you’d find at a Lohan family reunion.

“I’m going to accept that my parents lied when they said I could do anything I wanted when I grew up.”

There’s a generation of parents who read too many touchy-feely hippie books before their kids were born which encouraged unconditional support of whatever life path their spawns chose. I’m here to tell you that those books (and your parents) were wrong, and we’re not all destined to do the things we want in life. You won’t become a singer because you’re tone deaf. You won’t become a chef because we’d all rather eat turds than your “famous” Macaroni n’ Cheese. You won’t be a Senator because you don’t want to rip off the public and sleep with barely legal interns. I’m not saying you can’t do great things, but at some point (preferably before you’re 45 and forced to live with your parents while you chase your pipe dream) you need to accept that you have a better chance of being eaten by a Kraken than you do of meeting your lofty goals.

“I’m not going to worry about my weight.”

I can already think of a couple of people who are going to scream, “Jen, how can you encourage people in the fattest nation in the world to not worry about their weight!?” Have a Snickers bar and calm the hell down. I’m not saying people shouldn’t strive to be in good physical condition, but what did worrying about it ever accomplish? Guilt? Self-loathing? Insecurity? Depression? Oh yeah, those sound like great things to strive for in the new year! I think people should eat healthy 80% of the time, work out 70% of the time, and stop beating themselves up 100% of the time. You are not just a number on a scale, and how good of a person you are is never determined by what the tag on your pants says. Just follow my recipe for success (patent pending) and you’ll be fine.

“I don’t have any resolutions. I’m pretty fucking awesome the way I am.”

BAM!

The funniest thing about resolutions has always been that we wait until the last day of the year to make them, and the first day of the year to start them. Why? There is no greater time to start on our paths to self-improvement than today. I think the pressure to “get it right” because of our perceived notion of needing to fix ourselves this time of year only sets us up for failure.

This isn’t to say we shouldn’t make promises to ourselves because I think we absolutely should. I actually have my own laundry list of “to do” items for 2012 which I’ll share with you guys in a separate post. I’m just not going to sweat it if, by May, I haven’t met David Hasselhoff because I don’t believe in waiting until New Year’s to start over. I’ll go to bed, wake up the next day, and then try again.

I really do hope that no matter what you want to accomplish in 2012 you’re able to. If you want to quit smoking, I hope you do. If you want to learn how to juggle, I hope you do. If you want to train your cat to play the keyboard, I really hope you do. It’s only if you aspire to take more pictures of your feet that you and I are going to have a problem.

Tags: cat playing a keyboard, feet pictures are gross, getting a better job, I want to meet David Hasselhoff, losing weight, new year's resolutions, resolutions are lame, yell at your kids more