If you’re rethinking that resolution you threw on the post-it note above your desk, I’m here to help with some top resolutions and how they could go horribly wrong. You’re welcome.
Travel
Woah, just don’t. Especially when you have to pay a ton of money to go with a program. There is not necessarily safety in numbers; in bigger countries, numbers make you a bigger target.
I’ve been to some interesting places, but in the U.S. there is always the risk of being robbed, basically everywhere, and outside the U.S. in a touristy, relatively safe location its kitzschey and not worth it. Outside the touristy locations, it’s full of murder and rape.
So what I enjoy now is TV. In my jammies, with hot chocolate. Check out Dark Tourist and An Idiot Abroad on Netflix, then tell me if you still feel like dropping thousands on a plane ticket. Go to your local planetarium for $10 and explore the stars instead.
Photo Credit: “Danger Danger!” by Adam Levine
Volunteer
A 23-year old woman was kidnapped last November while volunteering in a children’s home in Kenya. We’re still looking for her. This list could go on forever.
Of course, it all depends on where you’re volunteering. But most jobs are volunteer position because people won’t be paid to do them, or are asking too much. Rather than choosing a huge organization, find something small, local, and community-based. Forget the Peace Corps — it’s rape city.
Photo Credit: “World-Weary” by Grant Eaton
Lose Weight
It’s sort of an inside joke with nurses (I’m outside the joke, but so I’ve heard) that the first few weeks of January are crazy in the ER. 400-pounders deciding they’re going to hop on a treadmill for twenty minutes when they can’t do a flight of stairs without seeing stars; scrawny kids dropping dumbbells on their feet; one lady was almost scalped at the gym!
Just avoid it. Your body is a 10. And if it isn’t, that doesn’t mean you have to lose 10 lbs by February 1st or you’re a failure. There’s no “New Year’s Resolution Police”. You wanna eat that cupcake, do it, and don’t beat yourself up. Because there is no horror worse than denying oneself a cupcake.
Health is important but too many people want it without the change of mindset. I’ve started intermittent fasting and am slowly losing weight and unhealthy food decisions. It isn’t all about losing $40 a month to a gym.
Photo Credit: “Down but not out” by Todd Dwyer
Change Your Job
If you’re miserable in your work, then I’d say leave it. Find something that makes you happy. But just in case you’re on the fence about this one, consider that you likely will spend at least 8 weeks unemployed, but may go much longer. I found a lot of info on this one but the variables in economy, job sought, age of person, all that skews it like mad. Just know that average unemployment benefits last only 26 weeks, and if you’re looking for a job with better benefits or higher pay than the one you left you will probably run out of unemployment before you find it.
Starvation. Homelessness. Possibilities. Maybe just try to negotiate a raise where you’re working now and take up a fun hobby on the side.
Photo Credit: “Bored” by Steve Koukoulas
Read More
Oh baby, you’d think I’d have nothing bad to say about reading more but give it some thought. What are you reading more of? News is depressing as hell, I don’t read any of it because boooo.
Stopping by the thrift bookstores? A good place to start in one’s quest to read more since books ain’t free. But I tell you, if I had a nickel for every absolute waste of ink I’ve picked up in these stores, I’d have three nickels. I have a problem, though. If I pick up a book, I read it. I read it right through the awfulness to the end. It’s an author tip I’ve heard and I truly have learned some things from mediocre and awful books. I’ve come to love some authors by forcing through a boring book this way but I’ve also come to not be able to “unread” some truly horrible blather. Guys, I threw a book away. It was so stupid, so mind-numbingly predictable, cliche, sexist garbage in my favorite genre of horror that I wasn’t even willing to donate it to charity. The whole world was better off when I tossed it. That made me sad. So consider what you read carefully. Try variety–right now, I’m reading It by Stephen King (again), The Space Book by Jim Bell, and The Story of the Irish Race by Seumas MacManus. Rather than read a huge amount, try to instead read a variety.
Also, if you’re a sissy and you read something scary, nightmares and all that happen. If you’re looking for some good horror, particularly if you’re a mother, read Bird Box by Josh Malerman. Awesome. (I’ve heard the movie is really bad, though, so stay away from that).
Photo Credit: “Go Away Dust” by John Liu
I think it’s clear to see that I think resolutions are trash. Goals bum me out. There are lots of things I’d like to do, and I do it, but not when I tell me I have to do it. Example: download DuoLingo, do five minutes of it instead of Sudoku. No deadline, I don’t have to take a Spanish test Dec. 31st and if I don’t pass I am therefore a failure. Enjoy life, don’t force it. Maybe I get good at Spanish, maybe I lose fifty pounds intermittent fasting, but I don’t pile on the stress with forcing myself to do either.
Life’s too short to hate the ride.
Peace out, 2018.
MalloryKelly 
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