Resolutions Over Solutions (The New Year Dilemma)

Sparks are left after the fireworks burst in the evening sky. The motivation for self-transformation that has long died before the “-ber” months even arrived is reignited. The fireworks leave a domino effect, kindling passion in those who witness it. The memory of that spectacle pulls me to my desk, where I grab my pen and begin a stroke down, then to the right, down again, then left—it’s a checklist box for yet another New Year’s resolution.

I tell myself that I won’t have another grade below 90 in the next year as I wait in unnerving silence for this semester’s grades. To prepare the balm as I anticipate my academic wound, I soothe myself by focusing on what I can do in the future. I've created a mental list of everything I'll do differently for 2025. After all, it feels much more special and motivating to start something new when the first day of the year strikes, doesn’t it?

Motivated by the “new year, new me” mindset, creating a New Year’s resolution is not an isolated experience. We are naturally inclined to follow freshness wherever novelty is stirring in the atmosphere, and what better way to match the newness of the year than to also do something new with ourselves?

Over the years, resolutions we’ve made since childhood have evolved into more introspective and realistic goals. “As I grew older, I became more reflective. My resolutions shifted to focusing on setting firm boundaries, being kinder to myself, and prioritizing personal growth,” says Ed, a BS Digital Illustration and Animation student. He expounds on how his resolutions are effective drivers of motivation, even achieving a few as the years pass.

However, it is also no surprise that most of us who have listed 20 goals will not have checked more than five by the time December 2025 arrives, as I am guilty as charged.

So, why do we lose interest in something when we initially wanted it with such a strong desire?

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗮𝘀-𝗞𝘂𝗴𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿

Beginning a new project fills us with excitement. However, the idea of the probable success of completing a goal tends to outweigh the concrete actions taken to achieve it. Infamously known as an idiom that is—unfortunately—characteristically Filipino, the 𝘕𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘴-𝘒𝘶𝘨𝘰𝘯 behavior occurs when the fire of strong enthusiasm for starting a goal is extinguished before fruition. With such an experience repeating year after year, interest fizzling out has become an unsurprising ending of goal setting.

When the need for discipline and commitment surfaces from the fog of our projections, the reality of what success really entails reels us back to earth to reevaluate our goals. What is the result of this? Not finishing the task started because it’s too much work. Some lose interest in the challenge of consistency and not receiving immediate results, while others are swallowed by self-induced unrealistic expectations. 

The goals we’ve set loom over us with an intimidating glare that ignorance is the only solution to escape them. “Instead of serving as motivation, they [resolutions] can create pressure and guilt,” Ed explains, expressing the downside of setting resolutions. “They can cause us to focus too much on hustling for future goals, leading us to neglect appreciating and working on the present moment.” 

𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀

This dilemma persists in various aspects of our individual experience and extends beyond applying New Year's resolutions to goals that affect the masses. Projects promising to create better roads made at the beginning of the year are left for fixing until the end of December.

“𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘣𝘢𝘨𝘰,” is a phrase repeated by elders as news about hours-long traffic is, again, brought to our attention. Loved ones travel across the country to visit their families, as they long to spend the holidays with them. Only for this longing to be aggravated by 17 to 20 hours of traffic from the usual 8 to 12-hour journey. Year after year since 2021, this concern resurfaces during the holidays.

Instead of alleviating the difficulty of traveling, constructing new roads delays those needing repair. Resource and labor shortages coupled with proposals for shortcuts and highways only defer the pending problems that eventually result in more traffic. New paths are built before the old ones are fixed—a curious analogy to the process of achieving New Year’s resolutions.

𝗠𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄

As I write in my journal expressing everything that has transpired over the past December, I can’t help but flip through the pages of this hardbound notebook until I come across a checklist written in faded ink from last year. Most are relatively achievable goals—I’ve only accomplished one. However, it comes to a point where new resolutions become obsolete because of the pending tasks I’ve made for myself.

After realizing the self-bombardment of goals—the unrealistic goal—I began looking deeper into myself, reflecting on the parts of me that need healing, not fixing. Yes, it will be another task for my New Year’s resolutions, but it transforms into a small step of improvement. One that clears blockages from my old path to forge space for new ones. Perfectionism is not the aim, but the wisdom to use my flaws as strengths—transmuting qualities I once perceived as negative into healthy attitudes.

Perhaps the loss of interest isn’t the only driving factor for not pursuing a New Year’s resolution but the suppression of wounds that pull us into negative patterns and habits that inhibit fulfilling our desires. It takes an act of genuine love to accept areas of ourselves that we want to keep hidden—a quality that lasts a lifetime to fulfill.

So, we create New Year’s resolutions to change, for progress keeps us alive. The human inclination to seek change drives us forward with the promised hope of a new beginning. What fuels renewal is the completion of the past, but in the pursuit of healing, let us remember to be kind to ourselves.

It is us that reignite the motivation for self-transformation that long died before the "ber" months even arrived. Hundreds to millions of stories have lived in 2024, and the next are countless resolutions that write us new chapters for 2025. We re-emerge alongside the new year to be better and brighter for ourselves no matter how fleeting our existence is, carrying the desire to leave a lasting memory, like the sparks left after fireworks burst in the evening sky.