Celery Sticks and Being a Loser: Why New Year’s Resolutions are the Worst

I’m no life coach. In fact, I have no qualifications at all to tell you how to live your life. I mean, I’m not an idiot or anything, I’m just not a role model. But put my legitimacy aside for a second and hear my advice: don’t eat celery for breakfast. I know what you’re saying: “Jacob, I wasn’t gonna do that anyways. That’s stupid advice.” I hear what you’re saying and first of all, please don’t interrupt me. That’s rude. Second of all, that’s what I thought for my entire life, until 10:29 am this past Sunday. When the clock hit 10:30, I woke up, brushed my teeth, did all the morning stuff, but lazy old Jacob didn’t want to get up and walk the entire 250 yards to Commons. I was starving, but I was unfortunately stuck in my dorm with incredibly limited choices for breakfast. I could eat the raw pasta that I’ve put off cooking for a week, but something about crunchy whole wheat rotini just wasn’t doing it for me. I could eat apple sauce but I have no spoons in my God forsaken dorm, and I’ll be damned if I have to eat apple sauce by slurping it like some barbarian. My eyes were frantically darting around the fridge. Left, right, up down, but there was nothing. A single bead of sweat runs down the side of my cheek. I was running out of options like a Chip Kelly offense (that’s a great football joke, just trust me). The only food I had left was a plastic container of celery. So I ate about 10 celery sticks for breakfast.

So why did I only have dumb healthy foods like applesauce, whole wheat pasta, and celery? Well it’s because I’m a loser, and more specifically, because I made a New Year’s Resolution. I decided to eat healthier, and I thought better about feel better about the choices I was making. I went to Kroger the other day, and stocked up on healthy foods. We’re talking almond butter, baby carrots, celery, you name it. I was jubilant when I went to check out with my Kroger plus card, which actually saved me a good amount of money. You know you really can’t overstate the value of a good deal. When you have a Kroger plus card, it’s like every day’s a sale!  

Fast forward to Sunday. I’ve already eaten the celery and now its around 2:00 and I am starving. I’m functioning off of some celery sticks and nothing else the entire day. What do I do? I go to Commons and absolutely pig out. There were eggs, biscuits. gravy, cereal, and those weird little potato cubes. As if that wasn’t enough, I head to Munchie and use up a flex meal on those cookies and frozen food. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a man the exact moment he decided to give up on his hopes and dreams, but for those of you in Munchie on Sunday, March  18th, I am genuinely sorry you had to see that.

I went home, and later that night, I had a revelation. It is around the time of year when people tend to lose their New Year’s resolution, and society is so obsessed with perfection, even though it is an unreasonable and unhealthy goal to aspire to. It’s why Barbie Dolls, and the unattainable standards they set for the bodies of real women, are terrible role models. Little girls are starving themselves to try to look like their dolls. New Year’s Resolutions, like Barbies, have consequences that can be dangerous and unhealthy. We spend more time focusing on what society deems to be “perfect” rather than focusing on our own wellbeing. I’m not saying live an unhealthy lifestyle, or not to have goals and aspirations, but if you can go to bed happy with the life you live, then there’s no need for a resolution. If something is making me unhappy, I will do all that I can to prevent it. I think that seems reasonable enough, and and least it’ll stop me from overdosing from Mrs. Fields cookies in Munchie.