Whether students are ready for it or not, 2015 has arrived. With a new year beginning, students have been in forming New Year’s resolutions. Although a great deal of Northwestern students have stuck with the classic goals of eating healthier and working out more — or perhaps do not have a resolution at all — other students opted for more quirky resolutions.
Shelby Maznio set the bar high with her New Year’s resolution, with her goal of speaking only kind words about others.
“I want to lift people up, so if I don’t have negative comments or something that brings people down, I can lift them up a little bit,” Maznio said.
Maznio, negative comments about others are useless to her, which had a large impact on her inspiration for this resolution.
“I think people respond better to positive comments if I’m trying to get into conversations.” Maznio said. Her goals have been working out so far, but Maznio admits she still catches herself saying something negative and wishing later she had not said anything at all.
Maznio isn’t the only one on campus setting goals for herself. Student Government President Erin Van Horn is also ambitious with her resolutions. Van Horn is working toward a different resolution each month. She hopes to achieve goals throughout each month in different categories, particularly in the areas of fitness, faith and healthy eating.
“I noticed I didn’t really try until the last few months with the yearlong goals,” Van Horn said. “So I decided I’d break it up into benchmark achievable goals each month.”
For the month of January, Van Horn focused on memorizing Matthew 10:39, reading a book outside of class assignments, clean eating for a week and getting rid of extra items she has lying around.
Siblings Justine and Michael Johnson share a tradition with their family involving resolutions.
Each year, the Johnsons write on slips of paper and collect them in a jar.
On New Year’s Eve, the family gathers to share some of those memories with their cousins.
“I think my favorite part about it is that it motivates me to pay attention to the things I do during the year and value the exciting parts that may not have seemed that significant at the time, but later when I talk about them, I realize just how special they were,” Justine Johnson said.
Through this resolution, the Johnsons also have developed another tradition of poking fun at the traditional goals others set but don’t stick to. Each New Year’s Eve, the Johnsons create fake resolutions share them with the rest of the group.
“I enjoyed that part because it was more of making fun of the New Year’s Resolutions that don’t end up happening for more than a month before you give up on them,” Justine Johnson said.
New Year’s resolutions may be as varied as the people who make them, but all begin with the intent of making ourselves better. Perhaps the simple act of wanting to be better is the best resolution of all.
