New Years Devolutions

The title is the affectionate name I've affixed to the tradition of new year's resolutions. A wonderful time of year in which we lie to ourselves and everyone around us about how we plan to bring ourselves up to the basic requirements of humanity so that we can be injected into social situations without people fleeing in despair.

Last year I made the resolution to buy Vogue every month, in the hope I would become a better fashion journalist whilst simultaneously sizing up the competition. I did succeed in my resolution, but I also started buying and smoking Vogue menthols around September to deal with the mind numbing boredom of having to read stupid Vogue all the stupid time. Yay, rich white people did something I saw on tumblr six months ago. No one cares... Frankly it's put me off resolutions altogether, even ones that initially seem appealing. I've decided to break down the most common resolutions for the rest of you, so you don't make the same mistake.

Here are the top ten new years resolutions according to the first website that came up on google that had 'statistics' vaguely in the description. Therefore, science.

1: Lose Weight

...Awkward. 

It's hopefully apparent by now that this blog is sort of about all bodies being valid and beautiful and deserving of decoration and enjoyment. So losing weight is essentially the act of attempting to care for something more through the action of liking it much less. So you know, good look with that. I'll be here eating a cake and cackling.

2: Getting Organized

This is the vaguest instruction ever given. It could literally mean anything from clearing a path from your bed to the toilet so you stop tripping over to something as mental as colour coding socks (people who do this are unwell). The vagueness is intentional so that this resolution becomes ongoing and can never be completed, thus completely destroying the entire point of resolutions in the first place. If you are absolutely distraught by the amount of time spent flailing around after lost things that you lost because you're stupid and don't have a bowl specifically for keys then resolve to BUY A BOWL FOR YOUR KEYS. Solve the problem that keeps repeating itself as opposed to seeing it as an intrinsic and utterly unforgivable character flaw. Everyone loses shit. It's ok. You're still hot.

3: Spend Less, Save More

Thus you will have more money that you are not allowed to spend. Well done.

4: Enjoy Life to the Fullest

What? What?! I don't even know where to start with this one. People saying things like this fills me with loathing. As though everyone who enjoys sitting around watching television and eating grated cheese directly out of the bag is missing out on some great secret of existence. It reminds of me this scene from Community, when the mental accounting teacher goes all dead poet society and is obsessed with living in the moment. If you make this resolution, you will be this man. Everyone will hate you. Enjoy.

5

5: Staying Fit and Healthy
If you make this solution it means that you think you have god like powers and are incapable of falling ill once you have resolved not to. Unless you are insane, you will know that simply deciding to drink more water, eat things that have colour and run around for an hour three times a week, will not make you impervious to ill health.

Sidenote: I just remembered that I had a brownie in my bag from a bakery I hadn't tried yet on lower liffey street, and it was possibly the greatest moment of my life. Moving on.

6: Learn Something Exciting

This is slightly less annoying than the others because at least it only has ONE occurrence. It's not some bizarre, ongoing nightmare like 'be organized'. Unless you decide to learn a language and it's something you sort of have to study for the rest of your life, in which case there is no actual way to complete this resolution. But frankly if you pick a language you've failed at the 'exciting' part of the resolution and have instead chosen the 'grueling, painful but incrementally rewarding' option.
Basically this one is complicated and I'm terrible at Spanish.

7: Quit Smoking
My only advice is this: don't buy Vogue. You'll have a fag hanging out of your mouth before page four to counteract the immediate stress caused by such elitist, classist, sexist, nonsense.

8: Help Others in Their Dreams
...
sigh. Give a child a balloon. DONE.

9: Fall in Love
Nothing helps the process of falling in love like unnecessary pressure caused by bracketing the discovery of your soul mate into a 12 month period. This means that if you don't happen to meet the person of your dreams within the year of the resolution (because of silly things like standards, or reasonable judgement or god forbid, some patience) then you will have nothing but a new layer of self loathing to add to your existence. You lonely, lonely existence.

10: Spend more time with family
The vague nature of this one is actually extremely helpful. It means I can spend leisurely hours laughing and chatting with relatives whose company I enjoy. And those who I hate, I can spend several seconds extra in their company before fleeing to safety.

I know that the argument is that resolutions are SUPPOSED to be open ended and act more as a constant reminder throughout the year of the general self improvements you were hoping to work on. But that is stupid. Resolutions can't be resolved unless they have some tangible result, and without some kind of result, why are they being pursued in the first place?

You people confuse me. But on the other hand, that brownie was utterly glorious so with that open ended ethos in mind, I think I'll resolve to eat more of those brownies. How many more? Who the hell knows.