Here's to you, 2007

Personally, I'm not entirely sure why New Years' Eve is such a big deal. I mean, all that really happens is that the date changes, right? Nobody really makes a big deal the night of November 30th because in a few short hours it will be December 1st. I don't usually have plans for New Years. Sometimes my parents will stay up, sometimes they don't; and my brother is usually watching the Disney Channel's New Years programming, so I just kind of mess around, watch the ball drop in New York at ten o'clock Colorado time, and then find some other form of entertainment to keep me awake long enough for me to watch the glowing red numbers on my digital clock go from 11:59 to 12:00 and see if I feel any different.

This year, I'm sad to announce, I didn't quite make it to midnight. I spent the last fifteen minutes of 2006 and the first hour of 2007 sleeping. Yep, that's right... my first of millions of memories that will comprise 2007 is a strange image of old friends juggling porcupines -- and telling me what the want from Wendy's... or something like that.

And, naturally with the New Year come those oh-so-hard-to-uphold resolutions. "This year, I'm losing weight." "This year, I'm getting my finances in order and I'll be debt-free by December." "This year, I'll spend more time with my family." "This year, I'll keep a journal -- everyday." "This year, I'll spend less time partying and more time studying."

Yep, they've all been heard before and they've all been broken before, too. But, calling these personal goals "resolutions" is kind of a lot of pressure. Resolution (noun): a formal expression of opinion made; firmness of purpose. Sounds pretty lofty, huh? It's a grandiose word for miniscule changes if you ask me. And that is not to belittle any sort of personal development that may or may not result from said resolutions, because any trifle of change can have a large affect on one's life, to be sure. But the point is that declaring these things in such a formal manner as "resolutions," makes them seem life-and-death important, where they are really things that will make you happy if are accomplished, but not make you miserable if they are not.

Here's another thing that kind of dooms resolutions: the fact that they come on Jan 1st. Well, that's daunting, isn't it? Here you are at day ONE of a new year, telling yourself about all of these changes you want to make, and uphold for another 364 days. That's a lot of days. There's this huge time element to these things that just isn't helpful. If you're one of the few who make it out of February with resolutions still, for the most part, in tact and continue undaunted with your self-improvement plans, don't you start to feel pressure that you won't be as far as you'd like to be by the time the next new year rolls around? And what if you're one of the many who loses interest after Jan. 3rd? Do you just make the same resolution the next year and hope that you have the power to follow through with it?

And why do you need to even make a resolution at all? I think a lot of people feel like they simply HAVE to do declare something that they resolve to do just because that's what you do typically. Is it against the law to stand up at your New Years' Eve party and say, "I do not resolve to do anything at all because I'm quite content with the life that I have"?

Well, here's to you 2007 and my resolution to make no resolutions and take any personal changes as they come.