Aaron Stokke
Sadashivan
Unrealistic Goals
Several people in this world get bent out of shape around the New Year looking or a way to fix their life with a resolution. Many psychologists believe that this process is a completely healthy act to engage in, while others believe that it is both unhealthy and unrealistic to set out to change yourself once every year. Personally I tend to follow the beliefs of the latter. Nothing could seem less natural than fixing on a certain day every year with which to look at your life, determine what you dislike about yourself, and then resolve to make an attempt at changing said problem with your life which will just fail anyway.
When I was younger, I wasn’t quite in the shape I am in now. Let’s just say that I could stand to lose forty pounds and wasn’t the most confident about myself. Of all of the things in the world that I wanted to change about myself, my weigh was by far on the top of the list. Every New Year’s eve the festivities would be ruined for me by thoughts of how I had failed myself the previous year and how I knew that next year I would try my best and just disappoint myself again.
From a very young age my doctor had always told me that I would grow out first, and up later. When you are young and overweight, it is hard to hear “just stick it out, some day things will change for you.” You only know that you aren’t normal and nothing that you do seems to make a lick of difference.
Around my thirteenth New Year I had stopped believing in making New Year’s resolutions. This time in my life also marked the point in which the doctor’s prophecy started to come true. I will admit, at that time I did start to take initiative in changing my weight, but most of my dramatic weight loss was part of what my genetics had planned for me. I lost those forty pounds over the next year; I also gained several bonus inches in height. It was definitely easier on me not making a resolution and letting life happen than it was wasting years feeling sorry for myself and coming up with impossible to achieve goals in the form of resolutions.
If anyone were to ask me what would be a good resolution for the New Year, I would reply “resolve to never make a resolution again.” By making a New Year’s resolution, you are just setting yourself up for failure and a depressing year. Life should not be spent focusing on what is wrong with yourself; it should be spent celebrating life’s differences and all of the great things about yourself that make you unique. It is easy to think of flaws in yourself, but it is much more rewarding to celebrate those flaws as the unique aspects of you. Those things make you the interesting person that you are.
Sadashivan
Unrealistic Goals
Several people in this world get bent out of shape around the New Year looking or a way to fix their life with a resolution. Many psychologists believe that this process is a completely healthy act to engage in, while others believe that it is both unhealthy and unrealistic to set out to change yourself once every year. Personally I tend to follow the beliefs of the latter. Nothing could seem less natural than fixing on a certain day every year with which to look at your life, determine what you dislike about yourself, and then resolve to make an attempt at changing said problem with your life which will just fail anyway.
When I was younger, I wasn’t quite in the shape I am in now. Let’s just say that I could stand to lose forty pounds and wasn’t the most confident about myself. Of all of the things in the world that I wanted to change about myself, my weigh was by far on the top of the list. Every New Year’s eve the festivities would be ruined for me by thoughts of how I had failed myself the previous year and how I knew that next year I would try my best and just disappoint myself again.
From a very young age my doctor had always told me that I would grow out first, and up later. When you are young and overweight, it is hard to hear “just stick it out, some day things will change for you.” You only know that you aren’t normal and nothing that you do seems to make a lick of difference.
Around my thirteenth New Year I had stopped believing in making New Year’s resolutions. This time in my life also marked the point in which the doctor’s prophecy started to come true. I will admit, at that time I did start to take initiative in changing my weight, but most of my dramatic weight loss was part of what my genetics had planned for me. I lost those forty pounds over the next year; I also gained several bonus inches in height. It was definitely easier on me not making a resolution and letting life happen than it was wasting years feeling sorry for myself and coming up with impossible to achieve goals in the form of resolutions.
If anyone were to ask me what would be a good resolution for the New Year, I would reply “resolve to never make a resolution again.” By making a New Year’s resolution, you are just setting yourself up for failure and a depressing year. Life should not be spent focusing on what is wrong with yourself; it should be spent celebrating life’s differences and all of the great things about yourself that make you unique. It is easy to think of flaws in yourself, but it is much more rewarding to celebrate those flaws as the unique aspects of you. Those things make you the interesting person that you are.
2 comments:
Aaron,
Your essay argues effectively for not making new year resolutions. However, my real question, the one I wanted you to answer in depth, was: Should we maximise our strengths or minimize our weaknesses? Where should we put most of our energy?
While you do come around to that question in your last paragraph, most of your essay gets side-tracked by the new-year resolutions issue.
I guess that I was a little unclear on what the assignment was.
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