Do you ever have those days where you say to yourself, “I’m going to change my life?”  You convince yourself that you’re going to be better, kinder, healthier, and a-thousand-and-one other things that just don’t seem to ever come together perfectly. Those days seem to be so frequent in late December and early January, because you think a New Year represents a “new you” — isn’t that cute? I suppose it’s nice to believe in miracles or some sort of magic every now and then.  But honestly, resolutions are only good for gyms who want to make money from false hopes that “this year really is going to be different.”

  Don’t believe me? Let’s look at your past month…. You are one-twelfth of the way done with 2016, and I’m sure you’ve already broken a handful of resolutions, if you even bothered to make any. I am not saying that you shouldn’t work to improve yourself; of course, you should! But, I don’t think you need a New Year or a list of resolutions to do that. The truth is, as a high schooler, it is difficult to make resolutions, because you have no clue what could happen this year. Of course, I want to get into college and get more fit, but I doubt writing it on a list will make it any more real.

 I feel that resolutions are for people who need a plan to do something new or different, and as a teenager, I think that those characteristics will come with the age. I am nothing like the person I was a year ago. That can be attributed to a lot of factors, but it is mostly because right now, my life is changing rapidly, and I’m sure it will keep changing  for awhile.  I mean, after all, in six months, I could be packing up my childhood into boxes and shipping it hundreds, even thousands, of miles away for college. So, for me at least, it is difficult to think about this year as a whole because I don’t even know if I’ll be in the same city at this time next year, let alone be the same person.  

  I had a conversation with an old friend one time, and amidst talking about the stress of college apps and the uncertainty that comes in the year to follow, he suggested to take it one day at a time. Maybe it’s not about what will happen in a year from now, or a month from now, because none of us have any control over that.  Maybe it’s about just being happy and working hard and having all those big resolutions torn apart into little bite-size goals everyday.

  So may your coming year be filled with only good fortunes, valuable experiences and fun times. But don’t think that you have to know what all those things are, and don’t worry, because you shouldn’t. This year will be filled with things you never saw coming. However, that doesn’t make them any less important than what you planned in a resolution.