New Year’s resolutions are contagious. My newsfeeds are polluted with posts of healthy recipes and meal planning ideas, home workouts and well wishes regarding good health and sound mind in the New Year. 

I get it. It feels good to do good, whether one is working towards a constructive goal or a fitness-related resolution. To be human is to feel useful, powerful and productive, but to be human is to also hear your 8 a.m. alarm and hit snooze. To be human is to roll back up into warm blankets and sleep for another 10, 15 or 45 minutes. To be human is to have a hard day and swipe the chicken cranberry salad off the table because it is wilted and the non-french fryness insults you. The audacity.

Maybe the baby boomers are right; maybe the millennials are just the worst. Or, perhaps, New Year’s resolutions are impossible to keep because we are all suffering from the crash that followed the highs of ambition. Regardless, I have a fool-proof strategy as to how to prolong the surrendering of New Year resolutions. 

My plan is simple: make way more resolutions than you can possibly keep. 

Want to make a goal to work out at least three to four times a week? Work out twice a day every day for as long as you can. Want to prepare a healthy meal for two out of three of your daily meals? Cook healthy stuff all the time. Want to open your mind? Dive straight into yoga, meditation, read into your birth chart intensely and stare into the flame of a candle in a tub of three to five bath bombs with a nose strip whilst contemplating the universe for seven or eight minutes (completely uninterrupted) daily. Be so immersed into the idea of your newest, best self that you run 95 percent of your goals straight into the ground. 

The philosophy I hold in regards to lifestyle changes is rather odd, but in my experience, something always gives. I always find a way to weasel out of one goal or another. This year, I figured that the more resolutions I make and put into effect, the more likely one will be to stick around, right? It is kind of like wadding up wet paper towels and throwing them at the wall. The more wet paper towel wads you throw, the likelihood that one will remain increases. 

Going into this New Year, I hope that I continue my path down a healthier, happier lifestyle. I sit here at my desk, feeling my core ache with every stroke of the keyboard, feeling rather content with the progress I have made in the first week and a half of 2018. My intensity and enthusiasm will fade over time, no doubt, but at least I can enjoy the feeling of intact resolutions today.   

Cheers to a happy and healthy 2018, and please, be responsible with your goals. No one reinvents himself or herself overnight and progress always ebbs and flows. What is most important is that one considers their wellbeing a top priority. For some, that means chicken nuggets and a movie night, others, a quick jog and a bath bomb. Enjoy your own path to fulfillment and good health, and please never throw wet paper towels (it feels really gross). 

Abigail Carlin is a junior English language arts major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or alcarlin@eiu.edu.