Welcome to 2012. Sometime in the waning days of 2011 or in the first moments of 2012, you very likely made one or several New Year’s Resolutions. By the time you’ve read this article, you’ve probably already broken at least one or two of them. This happens to almost everyone almost every year – you make resolutions in all sincerity, intending to keep them. Then BOOM, reality shows up, shuts down the party, and you stop keeping your resolutions circa January 2nd.
Even though they are frequently abandoned, New Year’s Resolutions are an important part of ushering in the New Year and can, if they’re kept, change your life for the better.
Though most people made their resolutions before the start of 2012, as a male high school student, I reserve the right to be a week behind the curve. Here are some of my resolutions, and some that I hope Edina, the country, and the world will all adopt. After all, in the words of Smash Mouth “we could all use a little change.”
My resolutions:
Stop procrastinating – To give you an idea of how well this is going, I decided to write this article before break. And started it on January 3rd. I’ll start ending my procrastination sometime in the near future, however. Just you watch.
Waste less time – I think everyone could benefit from this, but I’m making it one of mine. We all spend more time than we really should on Facebook and Twitter, but then come to school running on significantly less sleep than we should be. We can probably cut back on some of that social media and actually do what we’re supposed to do – then get some freaking sleep!
Read more – This ties in with my last one, since if I waste less time, I’ll have more free time, which I could use to rekindle what used to be one of my favorite past times – until high school and Facebook took over my life.
Resolutions for Edina:
Stop drinking – This might be a hard one for some of you out there, but it’s a good idea. Aside from being, you know, illegal, drinking (and especially the binge drinking common among high school students) is bad for you. Really bad for you. Like, killing brain cells bad for you. Plus, if you need booze to have fun with your friends, you might want to get less boring friends. And if you’re looking for fun things to do in our relatively boring town, please allow me to shamelessly plug a couple of my previous articles. Other Zephyrites have also written about where to go. Please read those articles as well.
And start giving back – Life in the Bubble has its perks – a few dozen BMWs in the school parking lot, huge houses, low crime, all that good stuff. We live in one of the richest towns in America and there are billions of people who are less fortunate that us. It’s not going to kill anyone to spend a few hours volunteering. In fact, it can be downright fun. The boys’ swim team went to Feed My Starving Children over break to pack meals for malnourished people around the world and really enjoyed the experience. Captain Andrew Petersen said that the experience “turned out to be really successful and easy and [it] went over well with the team.”
Resolutions for the country:
Do your homework – In November, Americans (including the entire senior class and some of the juniors) will go to the polls and elect the person who is going to run the country for the next four years. Many people know who they’ll vote for, but can’t explain what about their candidate of choice they like. I challenge every American to research the candidates and pick the person they agree with the most – even if that means (GASP) reaching across the aisle to a different party.
Consume less – Before I get labeled as a tree-hugging greenie, let me point one thing out: Think of the last ten things you’ve bought. How many of them did you really need? How many of them have since ended up in the garbage? For food items, think of the extraneous packaging that was probably unnecessary. Global warming, pollution, deforestation, conflict minerals, getting 50 cents off your drink at Caribou – it doesn’t matter what your motivation for going green(er) is, just do it. You’ll probably even feel good about yourself when you do.
Stop overhyping everything – Last year saw insane amounts of media hype in response to – among other things – the royal wedding, the release of the last Harry Potter movie, and the release of Skyrim. While I agree that watching the rich heir to a monarchy get married, seeing the end of a (much drawn-out) series, and the release of a well-made video game are all exciting, they were hardly as exciting as the media hype made them seem. So, next time something exciting is about to happen, let’s acknowledge it as exciting, but not over-hype it to death.
Resolutions for the world:
Stop spending other people’s money – This suggestion may well incite riots across Europe and start an Occupy Zephyrus movement here at home, but it’s necessary – no matter how unpleasant it may seem. Most governments around the world have spent the past ten years financing whatever programs they wanted to run not with tax money, but with borrowed money. This seemed all well and good while we were in an economic growth spurt, since tax revenues were at least able to keep up with interest payments, but when the plug was pulled on the expansion in 2008, the party came to a crashing halt. Now governments that were just getting by are broke and credit rating agencies are standing by, ready to downgrade at the first sign of trouble. Some people seem to think that we can tax our way back to a balanced budget, others seem to think that we can cut our way there. In reality, we’re going to have to do some of both and pay more to get less. That, unfortunately, is the only way to deal with the massive fiscal hangover the world now has after a ten-year binge on cheap debt.
Democratize – I’m looking at you, Mr. Ahmadinejad. And you, Mr. Castro. Oh, and Mr. Putin, you could learn a thing or two about the democratic process as well. It seems like many citizens of oppressed countries took this resolution to heart last year – The Protester was even declared Time’s Person of the Year – but their leaders have, for the most part, seemed to ignore the trend thus far. With the advent of the internet, the media has become democratized, and like it or not, a democratized media does not sit well with an authoritarian political system. That means that authoritarian regimes are going to come toppling down. Dictators and pseudo-dictators take note: You’re on your way out and your best bet is to step down now and hope you get on that last flight to a neutral country without any extradition treaties (Switzerland and Argentina are pretty good about that, I hear) – before the new government lays its hands on you for a trial.
Keeping with these resolutions may be difficult, but it is doable and it will lead to a better world overall. Here’s to 2012 and all the change to (hopefully) come in the New Year!
