New Year’s Resolutions?

Illustration+by+Ella+Riseman

Illustration by Ella Riseman

Emilia Gonzalez, Staff Reporter

Every New Year’s Day, people hold the tradition of making personal resolutions. For some, resolutions are a way for people to pretend to be hopeful of improving an aspect of their life. For others, resolutions are actually goals for the new year. However, do they actually end up resolving anything?

A very common issue with resolutions is completely forgetting about them.

“I don’t set resolutions for the New Year but I reflect on the past year’s events and highlights and draw a learning experience from them,” said teacher Grace Lee. “This helps me move forward and expect the best for the New Year. When I did set resolutions in the past, it wouldn’t work as well because towards the middle of the year, I would forget about it.”

Some people even give up on their resolution due to setting an unrealistic goal.

“In the past, I used to set the resolution of having straight A’s in school,” said junior Alexa Camacho.  “But I would just end up forgetting about working towards that or I would just give up on it.”

But for others, resolutions work like a charm.

“I try to commit to a New Year’s resolution every year,” said teacher Marisa Dobbertin. “It’s an easy way to remind myself to set new personal goals. Last year, my New Year’s Resolution was to simplify our awesome but crazy life with four kids.  So, I finally created a shared on-line calendar for our family schedule of lots and lots of activities. It’s been a game-changer.”

Whether they work or not, resolutions are a nice way to remind ourselves of what we want to achieve as the new year approaches.

“Setting resolutions for the New Year is different for everyone,” said Lee. “It works well for others. However, if I had to set one resolution for this New Year, it would be to expect something new and gladly wait for the unexpected to happen. Life’s surprises can be fun.”