Why wait, when you can now?

We have now entered the new year, 2025, and with that comes along with people who decide to make… New Year’s Resolutions! Goals you set out for yourself in the year to improve yourself mentally or physically or even both. But why do we have to wait for the New Year to come around when we could set these goals up for us now? Why do we wait for a specific time to make a change when we could act on that change at this very moment? It’s like when you’re laying in bed, scrolling through tik tok or reading a book, when suddenly you remember your sink is filled with dishes. You want to do them because you don’t want your sink messy and would like your cabinet filled with freshly washed silverware. You look at the time and see it’s 4:23 pm. You think to yourself, Its fine, I’ll just put them away at 4:30!, but then 4:30 comes around and you still don’t wanna get up. You change the time to 4:45 instead, then 4:50, until finally it’s 11:09 pm at night and the dishes you had told yourself you’d put away at 11:10 are still piled in the sink alongside a messy plate you have just eaten a snack off of because you got hungry. I know this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I know that at least one of the people reading can relate to this. You realize that the more and more you push a simple task away, the longer it’ll take for you to do it. Then this starts to become a habit. Your homework you promised yourself to do the minute you got home is lying on your desk as it’s 3:37 am on a school night and you’re busy playing your favorite video game. You’re sitting in class frantically dreading the geometry tests being passed out because you know you had 2 weeks in advance to study, but you spent that time binge watching the new season of your favorite show when you could’ve spent that time studying. That dirty pile of laundry in the side of your room has been sitting there for days but you’re too busy snapping people back to even think of getting up and walking a couple feet to put them in the wash. While all this is happening, you begin to realize the cycle you have put yourself in. You become stressed and overwhelmed with the piles of late homework you need to make up, your failing geometry now because you got a 42 on the test you could have easily studied for, the pile of dirty laundry in your room is now almost the same height as you because you’ve grown too lazy to get up and just run it through the wash which takes you a minute of time out of your day to do. But no. You didn’t do it. You’re now lying on your bed, realizing the hole you have dug yourself into, and you have the same incessant thought running through your head… I’m stuck. I can’t change it. It’s too late. But, that’s far from the case. It’s never too late to change, the minute you realize the cycle that you’ve been trapped in for so long has become an issue, you’re already one step closer to breaking that habit. The next couple of weeks role around, and slowly but surely you’ve taken time to sit down and do your homework. Your geometry teacher and you take time every Wednesday after school to give you the extra help you need, while you’re now sitting in her class with a 92. That pile of laundry is completely gone, and it’s now spinning in circles in the washing machine being cleaned. You’re with your family counting down from 10 watching the ball drop, as soon as it does you all cheer and squeal with excitement. About 10 minutes later, you’re all seated at the table talking about random topics when then one of your relatives pops the question. So? What are your new year’s resolutions? As everyone says the stereotypical stuff they’d like to work on, you stop yourself from almost speaking. Because you have the realization that just creating a News Years resolution isn’t resulting in anything, but it’s the matter of fact if you work on and actually keep your word with those resolutions that matter the most. You can say all you want, but actions always speak louder than words.