Making New Year Resolutions fashionable

It is a tradition to make New Year’s Resolutions — prospects, visions, dreams, targets, et cetera— at the beginning of every year. But is that not outdated? The tradition dates back 4,000 years ago and has been passed down with most people not knowing its significance.

There is a whole list of things that we set out to accomplish every year to improve our lives. Most of them require top-notch discipline and sacrifice. But with the sudden change of times, it seems unnecessary and impracticable to plan ahead of time. No matter how much one tries to manifest good things, bad ones always tag along.

Nobody makes negative resolutions; it is mostly about how they want to buy assets, quit using drugs, get into a long-term relationship, get a promotion at work, keep fit, save money and so on, forgetting that it isn’t all roses.

Resolutions are promises that one makes to oneself; they are close to expectations. It is hard to know what to expect as things take sudden curves; it’s hard to keep a straight track.

Exercising to stay fit and saving money are, going by statistics, the top resolutions that people make and the hardest to commit to.

Half of the people who make resolutions do not even go back to check whether there is a development as the year passes by; it is just something that we say or write and totally forget about.

What, then, happens when life slaps one with endless disappointments after making a whole set of goals to score in a given period of time?

Life is scary and making resolutions is a show of great faith in the unknown. Maybe we should continue to live by this tradition, continue to fantasize about all the things we want by creating beautiful images in our heads, later on paper, and then wait or work to see whether we can live up to it.

Resolutions are chances to start all over again. It is similar to having a blank slate and ink; you write over and put yourself up for new opportunities and risks.

Even though most of us just know a resolution as a cliché that we found happening, this ‘plan’ is, in hypothesis, the first towards a positive alteration and we should give it a shot regardless.

Resolution-making should be done scrutinisingly and methodically with the objective of getting a positive response from it. Sharing our resolutions with friends and family is also very important as they motivate one to stay focused on their goal.

A few days into the new year, alongside all the financial and mental difficulties that most are going through as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the festive season, it is pertinent to have a moment to reflect on all that happened last year and plan for whatever little thing one would want to accomplish in 2022.

Making resolutions might be an outdated tradition by accomplishing them is still fashionable!

Wangari Njoroge, Nairobi