The One With All the Resolutions

So among all the holiday episodes that Friends did, there are a handful of New Years Day/Eve episodes. The one that stands out the most to me today is “The One With All the Resolutions”. The Friends each pick something they need or want to work on and make a decision to change or improve.

Now comes the rant about New Years resolutions. How many TV specials make New Years resolutions a joke? They last for a few days or a week. Phineas & Ferb even made the joke that those New Years resolutions never even started.

I cannot tell you how much I dread January at the gym. It gets overly crowded (my gym is crowded regardless) and it persists for a month or so until the non-committed people trickle out. Every time I see Facebook posts about New Years resolutions, I roll my eyes.

That being said, if you have goals you want to work on, do it! If you want to grow and improve in a particular way, do it! But don’t make New Year’s Day your make or break. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone hits plateaus. Everyone gets discouraged. But it’s the trajectory of our progress and the resolve we continually renew that matters.

Don't get me wrong; the end of the year is a wonderful time to make goals. People tend to get reflective and introspective about how the year went. It's a great time to decide to make a change in our lives. However, the stereotype with New Year's resolution is that once you slip on it once, you give up. But we're taught to repent and make changes on a daily basis. As such, daily reflection and changes will make a stronger, longer impact on a person's life. That's part of why we take the sacrament each week. Whether it's a daily reflection, weekly reflection, or whatever, we can always make changes and grow and become stronger through the Atonement of Christ.

In the end, even though Joey didn't learn the guitar, Rachel started gossiping again, and Ross's leather pants were awful, you can grow and improve each day, instead of waiting for an arbitrary day of the year to start. Every day, every week, and every semester is the start of a new day, a new start. Welcome to day one!

"Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness." (D&C 58:27)