After surviving the commercialized pain of Christmas, we wait for New Year’s Eve with eager anticipation for the great things that are to come — or, in many cases, the looming disappointments.

I’ve written a list of resolutions every new year since I was 16. Occasionally I accomplish a few things on my list. It would be entirely false to say I ever look at my list after February. It sits in my journal, waiting for next New Year’s Eve, when I’ll realize my failures, cry a little bit and rewrite my list with a sense of optimistic triumph.

I might be a touch melodramatic. Resolutions are a truly terrible idea, though, don’t you think?

Resolutions are like diets: they are short-term solutions from which we expect long-term results. Like diets, most resolutions are doomed to fail. Lifestyle changes — for fitness, eating or smoking — need to be day-to-day decisions, not goals for the year.

Life cannot be planned or controlled, and while goals and dreams are hunky-dory, they set us up for disappointment. Why not just see what happens and go with the flow? “Light and breezy” seems a better way to live than attempting to control every possible change.

The one resolution that seems to pop up on lists year after year is to get in shape.

Fitness has become a monster that scares me at night as I drift to sleep and gives me shivers every time I walk into the PAC for an exam. Fitness especially likes to attack the vulnerable and self-conscious around the holidays. I’ve been a victim of Fitness and I’m sure you have too.

I started taking yoga classes in the fall but I fell off a bit during exams in December. I like yoga because it’s something I can practice in a group setting but as an individual.

Well, the yoga studio was terribly packed just days after New Year’s. I barely had room to do my sun salutations and I’m quite sure I got a little bit fresh with the old biddy who nestled up beside me.

There was an alarming number of couples there too.

“Let’s get fit together,” a husband says to his wife after eating one last box of doughnuts on New Year’s Eve.

I am fully aware of the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, so don’t start thinking I’m some kind of gremlin who looks like a potato stuffed into jeans. I just don’t understand why the Fitness monster swoops in so consistently around January first.

Perhaps it has something to do with all those weight loss commercials on TV before New Year’s Eve. I too get all riled up, convincing myself that I will have a rockin’ body before beach season.

It’s no secret that our society — or the media our society so fervently consumes — wants us all to want perfect bodies. If you don’t think the media has this kind of control or influence just watch Killing Us Softly 1, 2, 3 or 4. Jean Kilborne will set you straight.

I was a fat teenager. I was the kid who went swimming with a T-shirt on, the kid whose waist was bigger than his inseam, the kid who would bike to A & W on a hot summer day just to get a greasy burger.

It was my eighth grade teacher who encouraged me to eat differently and be aware of my fitness level. It was something I had never really considered until then.

It took me a long time to get here, but I’m comfortable with my weight and appearance. However, watching these ads on TV around the holidays never fails to bring me back down to a point where I don’t feel so hot.

Fuck you, media moguls. Fuck you.

In 2013, I resolve to resolve nothing. Making resolutions is old news. I’m simply going to let life happen for once, sans aspirations. While I do not want to encourage apathy, I do want to encourage healthy living without ridiculous expectations.

If you really want to join a gym or start taking yoga — and actually want to stick with it because you enjoy it — by all means, be my guest. But be sure you’re doing it for you. Don’t do it because, as Weight Watchers tells you, “Becky lost 101 pounds and her marriage has been saved as a result!”

If you are unhappy with your appearance, look at yourself for a long time in the mirror and love every inch of your waist, every roll of your stomach and every bit of unwanted body hair.

Let’s strive for self-love in 2013. Put your list of resolutions in the trash. Who knows, you just might become infatuated with that hairy mole on your back.

—
Illustration: Samantha Braun/The Sheaf