The Top Broken New Years Resolutions

The new year not only brings Jan 1st hangovers and regret over your choice for the midnight kiss, (who may still be lying next to you as you read this…) but also a plethora of New Year’s Resolutions. However I’ve discovered through extensive research and observation that there are certain resolutions that college students make and then break every. single. year. These are the top three New Years Resolutions that are forgotten by Groundhogs day.

1. Get in Shape

Whether it’s the fact that spring break is weeks away or that people over-indulged on holiday dips and homemade cooking, everyone comes back to school with overly-optimistic gym ambitions. Ellipticals that haven’t been used in months are suddenly turned on and counting calories. Everyone tries out the stairmaster once and a few braver people venture to the other side of the gym to lift weights. It’s always easy to identify the new-years-resolution-workouts; they are the people with the too-well matched gym outfits who do an amazingly intense workout for the first five minuntes and then spend the next 35 minutes walking and talking about being really serious about getting into shape. They chug their water, wipe off their nonexistent sweat and they’re never seen in the gym after January 31st.

2. Get Involved

There is always that one friend that comes back after winter break and really wants to go get involved this semester. While this person’s enthusiasm was inspirational freshman year, they’ve just become downright delusional by senior year. Despite signing up for more than 45 listservs throughout the past few semesters, this person has yet to find time to attend one meeting. However it does not stop them from telling you how they really want to do more this semester, really want to bulk up that resume. Whether it’s building houses for Habitat, joining the winter festival committee, or taking a deeper look at Buddhism, they convince themselves that this year will be their year. However homework builds up, new shows start, and before they know it the semester is over and the only thing they got involved with was talking about getting involved.

3. Get Good Grades

The smell of fresh textbooks and bright highlighters often have the unfortunate effect of making people believe that they really will work hard this semester. Your roommate’s once blank walls are now filled with large color-coded calendars and law-school admission stats are taped onto the bathroom mirror for daily inspiration. Instead of staying quiet during syllabus week and getting out of class 58 minutes early, they’re the person who asks the professor questions about MLA format preferences and possibilities of additional office hours. They spend their spare time calculating their possible GPA after their semester of straight A’s. But as the semester wears on they remember why they didn’t have straight A’s last semester; classes are boring, homework is tedious, and studying kinda blows.