New Year Resolutions

Welcome to the only ‘real’ reality show in the entire universe!!! Congratulations on being selected as one of the contestants!!! This show commenced the second you had your first cry, and will end… well, pretty soon. Your mission, if you choose to accept it (not that you have a choice really), is to relate and then relate some more, and then finally to mend your ways.

p.s. “If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions. I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.” ~ Portia, Act 1, Scene 2, The Merchant Of Venice, William Shakespeare.
[AKA I will preach to you bro, but don’t expect me to practice. There is a reason I am the host/judge of this reality show, and not the contestant. And that reason lies in the fact that you are clearly more talented than me, and while I sit here, fill my eating-hole with snacks, and pass judgments, I will not be able to do even half a minute of the act that you can perform. I am not saying that; Shakespeare said it.]

Alright, so without much ado, let’s see if our beloved contestants can fulfill their first task! Will they succeed? Will they fail miserably? Let’s see, although the latter is more likely. [insert dramatic background music here]
Contestants are you ready? Your first mission in this season is to define the ‘new’ in ‘New Year’s Resolution’.

 
This means that you are not allowed to recycle last year’s resolution, or the one before that, or maybe even the one before that, because let’s be honest, it didn’t really work out for you that way. Did it?
Honey, your previous resolutions were too ambitious. You need to cut them down into smaller, more achievable, chunks. For example, “get fitter” is an extremely bad resolution. You haven’t defined fitness, there is no incentive, and there is no time limit. How will you know when to stop? How will you know when you have achieved this resolution?

Goals need to be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Now go ahead and amend the previous example. Go on… do it… I will wait. Yeah, yeah, no worries, I am still here… go change it and then come back.
If the new improved version 2.0 of the example sounds anything along the lines of “I will lose ten kilograms (22 pounds for Imperial system worshipers) of weight by the end of May”, then my dear friends, you have passed this mission.
No need to feel proud. I helped you a lot. You are welcome. Moving on…

You're gonna get a mission
A mission, a mission
A brand-new mission
What's it gonna be?
Go and get your mission
Your mission, your mission
A brand-new mission
We can't wait to see!
(Mission song, The Lake Nose Monster, Phineas and Ferb)

I don’t know if you have guessed it already, but you are going to receive your second mission now.
For this mission, I require you to unscramble the letters in the word ‘resolution’ and make smaller words. The main aim of this exercise is to understand the main essence of the meaning of the word ‘resolution’.

Go on… Do it.
What did you get? ‘solution’? Pshhhh amateurs!!
What about ‘outlines’? A resolution should be the outline of the plans you wish to achieve for the next year. I know it might feel like it is not going to go great, but trust me, if you don’t plant the flowers, then you won't be able to reap them also. Outlines are very important. No matter how hopeless you feel this year is going to be, create a basic outline of how you want to make this brand new year count. ‘Make’ is something as simple as spending one day in a month giving your parents complete attention, and see if at the end of the year you don’t feel this year was way more different than the last.

What about ‘rules’? Could you make this word? A resolution should be perceived as a set of unbreakable rules. It should become your religion. And if it is something that is going to become your religion, then you might as well, make it foolproof and perfect. A resolution doesn’t necessarily have to be for a year. You can make a new one every day for each day. Make it like your daily planner, and carefully plan out your activities. Make sure you follow your hobby at least once a week, or if it's more of a high-maintenance hobby like traveling to an exotic part of the world to click pictures with some drugged up tiger, then at least once in six months.  

How about ‘snore’? A resolution should allow you to rest yourself properly. While I understand your need to be pumped up and productive, it is also quite important to have free time for yourself, whether you spend it snoring the afternoon away or playing a game of pool with your friends. If you do not allow rest periods for your brain, then the level of productivity one would like to achieve in an ideal world for the maximization of time and effort, will eventually decrease and you will find yourself procrastinating away.

These were just some of the examples. Or should I say, some of the more appropriate examples? Other words can also be made from the letters of the word ‘resolution’, they I don’t really know how they fit into this mission; for example, ‘roti’, ‘stool’, ‘snout’, ‘riots’, ‘urine’, etc.

All in all, Happy New Year!!! May this year be truly happy and prosperous for all of you!
However, before I sign off, let me give you your third and final mission: Let me know in the comments below what your new year resolution looks like, and remember to follow us on twitter @lirathena, and on our Instagram @lirathena