{"id":570,"date":"2014-02-20T18:42:49","date_gmt":"2014-02-20T18:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=570"},"modified":"2014-02-20T18:42:49","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T18:42:49","slug":"new-years-resolutions-a-peek-into-their-notebooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2014\/02\/20\/new-years-resolutions-a-peek-into-their-notebooks\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year’s Resolutions: A Peek Into Their Notebooks"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Regan Devlin<\/strong> – Cento Writer<\/em><\/p>\n

While establishing goals for oneself is a noble ambition, New Year\u2019s resolutions are notorious for their inconclusive nature; starting off the New Year with high hopes and a fresh slate sounds good in theory, but it is a well-known reality that many abandon these objectives soon after their establishment.
\nAlfred P. and Katherine B. Jobson Professor of English Dr. Mark Lucas is opposed to New Year\u2019s resolutions in particular. \u201cEveryday is a New Year\u2019s resolution,\u201d Lucas said.
\nThis sort of view is echoed by many who are critical of using the New Year as an arbitrary starting point for a goal or an ambition that can be made at any point in the year. Ultimately, thinkers that share Lucas\u2019s thought agree that self-improvement should occur deliberately throughout the year.
\nEven generally speaking, the process of goal-making holds interesting psychological implications. In a TED Talk entitled \u201cKeep Your Goals to Yourself,\u201d Derek Sivers, an entrepreneur and creator of an online music store called CD Baby, discussed how announcing goals after making them can make someone less likely to complete the goal, called a \u201csocial reality.\u201d
\nThis concept, recognized and named \u201csubstitution\u201d in as early as 1926 by Kurt Lewin, founder of social psychology, holds that when a person talks about a goal that they have made, the acknowledgment and recognition that they receive from others acts as a sort of satisfaction, rendering them less likely to work hard and pursue ultimate achievement of the goal.
\nIt was this TED Talk that inspired first year Kevin O\u2019Leary\u2019s far-reaching and all-inclusive New Years resolution.
\n\u201cThe gist is that I want to do everything that I say I\u2019m going to do,\u201d O\u2019Leary said. \u201cIt\u2019s a hard resolution because it makes you realize just how cheap talk is. I\u2019ve probably broken it a couple times by now, but I always have Benjamin Franklin\u2019s speckled ax in mind.\u201d
\nThe so-called \u201cspeckled ax,\u201d which Franklin writes about in his essay on moral perfection, reflects his realization that such perfection is unattainable but that the process towards this perfection is worthwhile. On the subject he concludes, \u201cOn the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and happier man than I otherwise would have been if I had not attempted it, as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, though they never reach the wish\u2019d for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavor, and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible.\u201d
\nSelf-improvement is inevitable through the process of creating and working toward resolutions. Also in his essay, Franklin discusses means of accountability. He created a complex system of charts to visually track his daily process of improvement. Each day, if he acted against his resolutions, of which he had 13, he would draw a black dot in the resolution\u2019s designated square, ultimately aiming for a blank chart at the end of each week.
\nSophomore Molly Randolph believes that constant reminders of resolutions encourage success. After being told by her grandfather that she \u201cplayed it safe\u201d way too often, Randolph got a tattoo of the phrase \u201ccarpe diem\u201d on her leg as a constant reminder to step outside of her comfort zone.
\nShe said that the tattoo forces her to hold herself accountable for this goal and that, if anything, not living by the words would make it feel \u201clike an arbitrary piece of ink.\u201d
\nShe attested that the tattoo has helped her hold herself more accountable for the goal.
\n\u201cI tend to be more of an introvert,\u201d Randolph said. \u201cI have made a lot of great new friends and hung out with new people who I wouldn\u2019t have before because of it.\u201d
\nFirst-year Harrison Kirby, who keeps his resolutions in a notebook, decided this year to both focus more on friendships and to pressure himself less, the latter pertaining to both his outlook on stressful school situations and in accomplishing his other resolutions.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not going to get stressed out or feel like I really messed up if I don\u2019t do perfectly on everything in class or if I upset somebody,\u201d Kirby said. \u201cI\u2019ll just fix things and let it go.\u201d
\nWith such a diverse and motivated student body and faculty, it is unsurprising that members of Centre\u2019s community set high goals for themselves, whether ambiguous or explicit, both during the New Year and otherwise. And it is admirable that even those like Lucas who do not set aside goals for the New Year still attempt to challenge themselves and to achieve self-improvement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Regan Devlin – Cento Writer While establishing goals for oneself is a noble ambition, New Year\u2019s resolutions are notorious for their inconclusive nature; starting off the New Year with high hopes and a fresh slate sounds good in theory, but it is a well-known reality that many abandon these objectives soon after their establishment. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}