Column by Allison Borthwick, Opinion Editor
‘Tis the season of reflection and resolution.
It seems that the end of 2015 snuck up on all of us. Now we’re faced with the daunting task of assessing the good, bad and ugly of the past year and preparing for the imminent good, bad and ugly of the upcoming one.
It’s about this time every year I realize that instead of sticking to my annual resolution to eat better, I treated every day like I was going to “start my diet tomorrow.”
They say to live each day like it’s your last, and that’s how weight-gain happens, people. Because apparently, to me, “carpe diem” means “carpe nuggets.”
Anyway, as we approach Jan. 1, 2016, let’s reassess our resolution technique. And please, for the love of cheese, add “Stop glorifying and encouraging destructive behavior” to our lists.
So, instead of resolving to lose half our body weight by eating nothing and literally running ourselves into the ground, let’s resolve to be healthy. The simple, obvious truth is eating less is so much worse for your body than just eating more of the right things.
Not to mention, cutting junk food out of your life completely will just cause pain and heartbreak. Cravings will turn you into a soulless, hangry monster, scientifically speaking. Moderation is the key to a happy tummy.
If one of your resolutions is to be less hard on yourself and have more fun, don’t think the only way to do so is to get drunk every weekend or, for some, every week day. And if that’s the pattern you’ve fallen into, perhaps resolve to make some life changes in 2016.
No judgment – I’m aware that a bottle of wine + good friends + a DJ bumping a killer 90s playlist = a good time. But, again, moderation is key.
Getting blackout drunk regularly shouldn’t be a point of pride. What’s fun now could turn into a major, nearly irreversible problem later. There are better ways to have fun and to cope with the hardships of the temporary situations you may find yourself in, I promise.
Don’t let the cause of blurry good times becomes a necessity. Reliance can easily become addiction, and then it’s often too late to come back from that.
Well, this got kind of dark and preachy.
Remember when we were joking about junk food? Those were good times.
Speaking of, maybe just resolve to let the good times roll, or whatever the kids are saying these days.
Be the change/pizza you wish to see in the world/oven.
Resolve to be happy.
Resolve to make others happy.
Resolve to laugh more.
Resolve to treat yourself and others better.
Resolve to stop taking yourself and your loved ones for granted.
Resolve to ignore my cliche resolutions and do whatever will make 2016 great for you.
All we can really do is just try not to repeat the mistakes we made this year, fix the ones we can and have the wisdom to know when too much Netflix is TOO much Netflix.
In the end, 2016 will just be yet another year where we still don’t have mass-produced cars that can drive themselves – so what do we really owe it?