New Year’s Resolutions: The biggest lies ever told. Every year, you tell yourself the gym will be your best friend, you’ll eat less Chick-fil-A and you won’t stay up until 5 a.m. writing a Child Development term paper due in three hours. Because a fro-yo date with the hottie in your biology class or celebrating your Big’s 21st birthday the day before your College Algebra midterm inevitably get in the way, just say f*** it and listen to the little devil resting on your shoulder.
1. Eat Healthy
First, you avoid the chip aisle at the grocery store, filling your shopping cart with only greens and reading every nutrition label. Oh, this Nature Valley bar is only 100 calories? Score. But when you return from the club at 2 a.m., a McDonald’s double cheeseburger seems like better drunk food than an apple. Florida State University senior Jeremy Kadoch said, “Food tastes too good to stay committed [to eating healthy]. I’m like a shark that smells blood—I always tell myself one little bite, but once I start, I can’t stop.” Like a Lay’s Chips commercial, you can’t just have one. When you inevitably buy chips at the store, it’s inevitable they’ll be gone within the day.
2. Work Out
After the pounds gained eating home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner and the champagne chugged on New Year’s Eve, you tell yourself you’ll actually run every day to prepare for your spring break vacation in Cabo. But once spring break commences, you funnel a bunch of beer on the beach and gain back all the pounds previously lost. FSU student Sarah Stump said, “My new year’s resolution for 2015 was working out. I have never gone a whole year completing my new year’s resolution, which is why this year I have the same resolution—to work out and eat healthy.” After spring break, you stress out over the second half of the semester and visit Starbucks, because nothing de-stresses more than a 490 calorie Vanilla Bean Frappe.
3. Not Procrastinate
I blame Netflix for procrastination. The countdown on Netflix before each episode gives you just 20 seconds to decide whether to finish your business calc homework or keep binging. Because every episode of Orange is the New Black ends with a cliff hanger, you can’t help but give in. “The one problem I have every year is that I say I’m going to stop procrastinating in school, in work, in health, in everything. I usually make it to about the end of January,” University of Central Florida Zach Anderson said. “It’ll be an honest enough screw-up; I might forget about an assignment due the next day, but after one late-night, it becomes a lot easier to justify others.”
4. Do Well in School
Don’t worry about not making the Dean’s List this year. It’s not your fault you bombed your philosophy paper, it’s that no one on the planet can even tell you what philosophy is. If you think your B- in Organic Chemistry resulted from getting wasted every night, blame it on the fact that your professor just didn’t like you. “My new year’s resolution isn’t broken, it’s just not complete,” University of Florida junior Daniela Chueke said. “We all have to recognize the progress even if it’s just a little bit.” So what if this semester you didn’t get straight A’s? One A beats none at all.
5. Get Happier
Some find happiness through joining an organization, while others find happiness drinking wine with their roommates or eating at Chipotle. “This year I chose to focus more on myself. I just worked on my body and tried my best at school,” Florida InternationaUniversity Natanel Wainer said. “When I saw progress, I became internally happy, which led to me being externally happy as well.” Happiness isn’t measured by big accomplishments, but rather by the small moments, like when you aced that test or got that hot waiter’s number. For 2016, let’s appreciate ourselves. Eat chocolate once in a while, blast some Adele or treat yourself to lunch at your favorite restaurant. You deserve it.
6. Stay Protected
After every hook up, your high school sex education teacher’s advice reverberates in your ears: Use a condom to prevent STIs. As Coach Car from Mean Girls said, “Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die! Now, everybody, take some rubbers.” But do you ever really use condoms? After three days waiting for blood work results, you wonder if the pain from the needle was worth not wearing a condom. Florida International University junior Joe Babs said, “I wish I used protection this year more than I have.” Think of it this way: Not only do condoms help to prevent STDs, but they also help men last longer. This year, wear condoms in the name of preparing yourself for the ride of your life—a ride that would be a lot less fun without a seatbelt.
7. Budget Money
Okay, so what? Sometimes your bank account only holds 15¢. But it’s not your fault that you need to hit up Jimmy John’s two blocks from the bar to sober up or spend eight dollars on Starbucks triple shots of espresso to study for midterms. A Halloween outfit costs $50 and barely covers your body, but the frat guy who finally spoke up after three years made the money spent well worth it. This year, we blew our money in the name of our last fall semester, because we’ll never be allowed to get drunk on Monday and munch on week-old pizza again.
8. Let It Go
Frozen’s “Let It Go” reminds us that we can’t let something hold us back anymore. Seeing your ex’s Instagram posts with a new girl or your best friend tweet inside jokes with a new friend often develops grudges, tears and lots of food therapy. On the bright side, 2016 will bring more opportunities to meet a lover, make friends and realize that high school sucks and living alone feels so much better. After all, college lets you choose your friends while high school forces you to be nice to people just because you’ve known them forever. If that’s not a reason to let go, I don’t know what is.
9. Go to Sleep Early
Every morning, after playing 2K16 with your roommates until 3 a.m., you hit snooze on your alarms. Then, you remember about your Spanish Lit quiz and panic when you realize you know nothing about Carlos’ adventure. Then, you find yourself falling asleep while the European History professor drones on about the fun facts of the French Revolution. FIU sophomore Juliette Weinger said, “Since I am nocturnal, my whole fall semester consisted of me going to sleep at 4 a.m. and waking up at 4 p.m.” Leave that extra round of FIFA16 for the weekend. Don’t you want more energy to turn up on Friday?
10. Time Management
Whoever said, “You can’t do it all” lied. As long as you wear a watch, you can. Stay away from social media and the club until you finish reading your Human Growth and Development chapters. “I split my time up evenly between school and my social life and friends to make sure I was able to do a little bit of everything,” UF junior Jessie Stein said. “I do fail when I get too focused on one thing and don’t have any time to enjoy or do the other.” This year, tell yourself to improve time management skills. Hey, if after three years you still suck at it and somehow survived, then you’ll probably be alright in life.
