People should give up on trying to
reinvent themselves.
By this point, all of the New Year’s resolutions have gone down the toilet. My friend said he was going to quit smoking, but now he buys two packs at a time. I have another friend. She said she was going to eat better, but she now eats at Wendy’s and McDonald’s every, single day.
I thought I wasn’t going to write another one of these ranting columns, yet here we are. The thing is, it isn’t just New Year’s resolutions at this point.
Take last week, for example. Plenty of folks said they were going to recommit to their studies, get that assignment done, but what happened?
Nothing.
Everyone screwed around as usual, and I can’t begin to fathom why. I was the same way. I had several pressing assignments that I didn’t bother doing until the day they were due — this week — and my friends weren’t much better. Some spent their days smoking reefer or drinking, or a combination of both. But that’s not necessarily a problem.
The problem is making an effort to try and be better. Anytime someone tries to be better, this attempt inevitably fails and causes a person to feel shame about being incapable of living up to their goals.
The person that tries to quit smoking will feel worse after they fail because smoking is difficult to quit. It’s as hard to quit as heroin. Seriously, Google it.
And don’t even get me started about losing weight. You basically have to starve yourself, and if there’s one thing Americans have on third-world countries, it’s that we don’t starve on a regular basis.
What else is there to improve?
Be nicer, but really don’t. Your brain is hardwired to be a prick for a reason. It’s because everyone else is a prick, and if you aren’t a prick, you are going to get eaten alive. Just watch “Yes Man,” or read a study of how the nice guy will never get the girl because the prickish guy already wowed her, used her for sex, and ran off to the next girl with a pair of breasts. For real, Google that, too.
Maybe you wanted to spend more time with your family and friends.
Too bad there’s a reason you don’t spend more time with your family and friends. Maybe it’s that creepy uncle who always wants to meet your girlfriend, and in some cases boyfriend. Or maybe it’s the friend who borrows your car, crashes into the Dairy Queen, and then asks you to bail him out of jail and foot the bill for his
blizzard. You want to spend more time with people like that?
Another popular resolution is to give up drinking, but who wants to live a life without booze? No one. That’s who. Google says so.
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Or perhaps you want to work out more, and get that body trimmed up so you don’t horrify children when you decide to wear a T-shirt. But working out requires effort. A lot of effort. You have to sweat to do all that, and if you are already overeating and smoking, it’ll be that much harder.
Perhaps you’re a scholar, and you pledged to learn something new every day, week, month or so on, but you won’t. Learning sucks.
Can you actually go through class and not text or doze off? Can you say you’re going to do all the reading for that underwater basket weaving class when the teacher isn’t even grading? To put it simply, you can only learn so much, and if you try to stretch yourself, your brain will ooze out your ears. Seriously, Google it. The almighty search engine never lies.
Let’s say you’re the practical sort and this is the year you’re going to get out of debt. But let’s reconsider this a bit. There’s a reason you’re in debt, and it’s because of poor impulse control. Every time you see something shiny you buy it, and that’s not going to change because you want it to. That’s brain chemistry, and you aren’t changing that anytime soon. Do I even need to say it? Google it.
The point is simple. Anytime you try to change something you fail, so just stop trying to change.
Drink yourself to death on Cheeto-flavored schnapps while avoiding your family and friends. Go out and buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke them while roller-skating on a treadmill because why the f**k not?
The sooner you can accept your lame-ass self the sooner you can stop feeling so lame. But that would require you to change yourself, so maybe you should give up on yourself altogether. It’s probably easier that way.
Google it.
