Why do I hate New Year’s Eve so much? Probably because I’ve yet to figure out why it is even a holiday. Much like birthdays, New Year’s Eve celebrates the one thing that happens no matter what, all over the world, forever: the passage of time.
At least on your birthday, you can make the day all about you. You can make people worship you simply for the feat of being born and continuing to exist. However, New Year’s Eve is just about our collective need to be sentimental about something. “Wow, another year has passed!” Yes, and you’ve accomplished nothing. What was your resolution from last year? How far along did you get with it? Do you even remember what it was?
New Year’s Eve is an excuse for us to lie to ourselves, to tell ourselves that this coming year, we are going to be better. We’re going to improve in some way, most commonly health or exercise-wise.
However, it never really happens. To be fair, it doesn’t really make sense. Why because today is December 31 and tomorrow is January 1 should that mean I’m going to make some major change to my personality and/or lifestyle? It’s not logical, and yet we all feed into it.
The most ironic part of New Year’s Eve and our irrational resolutions is how we typically spend the holiday evening: getting blackout drunk, staying up late, eating way too much, and making overall bad decisions. I guess the idea of a resolution, of a better you tomorrow, justifies the trainwrecks we all are on December 31.
Whatever your vice is, you can never allude it on New Year’s Eve. Whether a friend is forcing vodka down your throat or shoveling jalapeño poppers onto your overflowing appetizer plate, we’re internationally giving into peer pressure.
Personally, I tend to stay up way too late and make a ridiculous amount of resolutions that I probably won’t remember the next day. I’ve witnessed people make out with strangers, try drugs they’ve never tried before, drink themselves into oblivion, all in the spirit of: tonight, we’re alive! But no. You’re not. Maybe you think you are tonight, but tomorrow you’re going to wake up hungover and confused, craving a burrito and some Gatorade with no recollection of your promise to have a smoothie bowl for breakfast.
The healthy groceries you bought for the occasion will rot in your fridge, forgotten about until they begin to stink up your apartment and you’re forced to do the walk of shame: throwing them out and admitting defeat. Your brand new gym shoes will hit the floor once, maybe twice, and then end up on a rack at your local Goodwill. Your GPA will remain the same, your butt won’t get any bigger, and you won’t be any nicer to anyone.
I’m not trying to be a cynic. It’s just my job to keep it real for all of you, to bring you back down to earth when you start getting too idealistic. By all means, go out on New Year’s Eve. Have fun! Drink champagne, eat chocolate-covered strawberries, kiss your best friend at midnight. My only request is that you do this with honesty, aware of the fact that at the end of the day, it’s just—the end of another freaking day.
