With fresh and fond memories of the holiday season in our minds, some of us have already begun our countdowns for next year’s holiday festivities. Whether we celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or any other holiday, the end of the calendar year is a special time for all of us to join in the revelry and remember the great events of the passing year. It’s a time for loved ones to come together and connect with each other, through ageless traditions and new ones. It’s also a time for people to communicate with each other and reinforce the ties that sometimes weaken over the busy weeks and months of each year.
Many people also consider the holiday season an important time for annual reflection and self-evaluation and for the setting of new and higher moral and behavioral standards. The ceremonious ending of the old year and heralding in of the new one wipe each person’s metaphorical slate clean and prepare it for the many more memories—good and bad—yet to be made.
We are conditioned from childhood to be “extra good” during this time, and many of us make or have made New Year’s resolutions, which are simply self-made promises that range from losing weight to being a better friend to getting straight A’s in school. Most people will make one or two large-scale goals that involve strong willpower and steadfast commitment.
Personally, I find it nearly impossible to capture everything I want to accomplish in a year in just a couple resolutions. There are just so many things I could work on, in so many areas of life, to lead a more fulfilling and productive year. As crazy as it may sound to some people, I make a lengthy list of slightly smaller resolutions that are less daunting individually, but just as demanding on the whole as one or two large resolutions would be. That way, when I inevitably break a few of them, I still have many more opportunities to redeem myself through the remaining ones.
For me, making resolutions is only worthwhile—very much so—if they are both personal and achievable. They are meant to act collectively as a guiding force over the entire year, but because we are human, they are often forgotten or abandoned as time goes by. In fact, I cannot remember a year when I still remembered my resolutions (let alone adhered to them) by early February.
So am I doomed to a whole year of broken promises to myself because of my short memory and substandard diligence? I say no, because this past New Year’s Day, I made an altogether innovative yet brilliantly simple resolution to go with all my other ones. I resolved to write down and actually remember my rather epic list of promises, goals, and commitments. After many years of less-than-satisfactory New Year’s resolutions, I may have come across my best yet—one that we can all assimilate rather easily into our lives for a more fruitful year.
I stand firmly by the belief that there are few things in life more worthwhile and fulfilling than realized promises, especially when they stem from within us. The beginning of each New Year provides one of the best opportunities for self-improvement because it is the set transitional period between old and new, and between regrets from the past and hopes for the future. But what good is a resolution if it can’t even be remembered over the course of our daily lives?
By recording our resolutions, we can establish a more solid foundation for the year with little additional effort. We can have them at hand, through thick and thin, to remind us every day of the standards we’ve set for ourselves. Even for those times when we fluctuate in our actions, we can set our paths straight by earnestly reflecting on the past and then focusing on the future. And if each day we recommit to our resolutions and view each new day as the beginning of the rest of the year, our paths will hardly waver at all.
