And it is for this reason that I find New Year’s Resolutions a complete waste of space. If the year can begin that badly, if the year begins in a way which is such a disappointment, why on earth do we make resolutions in the first place? Especially as you will inevitably fail a few weeks later, making your year even worse that the night it began.

New Year’s resolutions are completely pointless, no matter how good your intentions are when you make them, you will guaranteed to have broken it within a month. Giving up smoking? You’ll be buying a pack of cigarettes within a fortnight. Want to go to the gym twice a week? That’s £1,000 on a year’s membership that you will never get back  that could have been spent on the chocolate you will end up eating a month late. My personal favourite (and one I used to use),  is to promise to be more healthier, that tends to last 12 hours with me as I start New Year’s day with a McDonalds. I have naff-all determination and don’t pretend you aren’t the same.

Resolutions are effectively the most stupid thing on earth. Why do you want to change who you are, with all your wonderful kooky faults, why get rid of them? That’s what makes you who you are. Anyone who knows you puts up with your nail biting, your obsessions with Twilight or that weird clicking you make with your hands, and they accept you for it regardless. Partners agree to take us as we are, in sickness and in health and our true friends agree to be seen with us no matter how much we may embarrass them. We are forever being told to feel more confident in ourselves, and yet every year we make promises to change? Eh? What part of that makes sense?

I may sound like the world’s biggest cynic, or just a mad crazy ranter, but I speak from experience. For many years I promised to give up this and that, to try new things, to care less what people thought of me, and to tell people if I had a crush on them. Years later I haven’t given up anything, tried nothing, still constantly worry what people think of me, and remain single. Score. If making resolutions have taught me anything, it’s not to bother.

Life is for living and loving, and resolutions prevent you from enjoying life to the full in my view. So if you must make resolutions, why not make ones that have no relevance to your life, that way everybody wins.  Don’t smoke? Make it your resolution to give up cigarettes. Have an active social life? Promise to keep going out. Spend too much shopping? Promise to keep spending as long as there is money in the bank and an overdraft to spend. That way you win, and you can walk around with the smug satisfaction that you are failing at nothing. Then you won’t feel like a loser when you polish off that last bottle of wine in an attempt to cheer yourself up for breaking your resolution again.

So why not make the only New Year’s resolution worth keeping? Promise never to have a new year’s resolution ever again, believe me, it works

Words by Eleni Cashell

Illustration by Josh Ogden