Time is Relative and New Year’s Resolutions are Pointless

By Lauren Penington

Time has only as much meaning as we put into it. We are the only species who lives in fear of our inevitable death, not because of our elevated intelligence, but due to the fact that we govern our entire lives under the laws of time, a social construct that holds no real meaning in the traditional sense. There is a before and an after, but every second that ticks by is no more than a rustle of the wind, passing fleetingly and only given meaning by the realities of our mind.

In this line, consider the turning of the year. There are 31,536,000 seconds in a year. If that seems like a pointless number, that’s because it is. So, about every 8,760 hours we, as a species, decide to change something about our lives, become bigger and better or healthier and fitter. Every 525,600 minutes we feel obligated to make a resolution for the next series of time. There is no true rhyme or reason to the methods we measure time with, in fact the tools that claim to govern the bounty of time are, in fact, constructs of the same mold. The position of the sun is a product of Earth’s rotation, but is used to dictate the periods where society has deemed rest normal and work mandatory. Though not exceptionally useless as a schedule, the entire concept of governing our lives as decreed by a burning ball of fire in the sky is ludicrous at best.

The concept that we know as time, outside of the ideas of past and present, was created to aid us in our endeavors, but has instead limited our mentality. We have grown so accustomed to it, that we have created certain traditions around the turning of a faux year.

The idea of “New Year, New Me” is a mentality that with each new year comes the resolve to change things in our lives. In all actuality, the idea of New Year’s resolutions holds little meaning at best, and is detrimental at worse – bringing along with it a mentality that each year wipes away past mistakes. Regarding the continuous time stream, while it can be healthy to move on from the past and toward a brighter future, believing in infinite chances is not only harmful to oneself, but the people who surround them in their life. It develops a toxic mentality that actions, and the consequences of said actions, are inconsequential and are mendable at any point.

Look, time is relative, reality is an illusion and illuminati exists, yadda yadda yadda. It is important to, if nothing else, understand the importance of mentality and the role it plays in our lives. By investing so much in a relative year, we put ourselves in an unending loop of adrenaline highs that fuel our actions yearly. Don’t fall into the trap. That is, creating these yearly resolutions that we know will eventually fall through as our resolve collapses as we progress further away from the year end high. Make year-long goals, not year-end goals, and stick to them. Commit to things you know you have the ability to complete, and let each action fuel you to complete the next one. Live in the now, but plan for the future, don’t rely on the power of clocks ticking to dictate your life and actions.