New Study Leaves A Lot To Be Resolved About New Year’s Resolutions

As we ring in 2025, it seems that many of us have either completely given up on successfully achieving even the simplest of life's many potential goals or have decided we're just so perfect exactly the way we are that there's really no need for continuing objectivity.

I offer this statement based on an end-of-the-year poll conducted by the folks at Statista regarding New Year's resolutions.

The German-based company that specializes in statistical data and surveys put its chosen field of expertise to use in asking thousands of supposedly "average" folks in the United States what their resolutions are for 2025.

Certainly, when the study's results came back they included plenty of responses which were thoroughly expected, with a fair enough percentage of respondents saying they were striving to eat healthier or exercise more in order to lose weight, spend more time with their loved ones or quit smoking.

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However, it wasn't what those who were surveyed claimed they wanted to resolve over the next 365 days that registered as particularly alarming, but rather what nearly half of the poll's entire caboodle of participants said they didn't want to do - which was anything at all!

A startling 43 percent of questionees reported that they had no intention of making any resolutions for the new year whatsoever.

43 percent!

That's right my fellow resolutionists, nearly half of everyone who was asked what they'd like to accomplish for themselves or the people and world around them in the coming year said, nothing.

Now look, I'm not huge on making New Year's resolutions myself, but in the face of being formally surveyed, even I could easily come up with two or three things that I'd like to do, or perhaps not do quite so much or at all anymore over the next calendar year. And I don't believe the survey aspect would even be necessary. Even if I don't determine an official resolution for the year ahead, I always at least peruse the thought of a handful of items that I probably should consider.

So where exactly did the folks at Statista conduct this survey then anyway?

Based on the results, I'd say it must have been offered exclusively to the residents of places like Beverly Hills, Midtown Manhattan, or Gables Estates in Florida. You know, the kinds of neighborhoods where even the term "affluent" seems vastly understated for the egregious amounts of material wealth on perpetual display, and where the plutocratic inhabitants have all been duped into believing they're even more pristine than any god that's ever been worshiped thanks to the veils of illusory zeros that enshroud their flaws from off-shore bank accounts.

Another possibility could be that our resident stat-in-the-hat survey takers misguidedly decided to direct a bulk of their research at convicted felons who are serving life sentences in prison.

Or maybe most of the folks who took part in the study are nihilists who also just happen to be pragmatists too?

Well, for as much as I'd actually like to believe that any of these possibilities are the reason behind the survey's disturbingly-indifferent results, I'm afraid the real culprit is more undeniably obvious.

Yes, it would seem our old pal apathy appears to be working overtime within the collective psyches of the American gene pool once again.

Now, I'm sure a lot of people would find it very easy to dismiss the findings of a social exercise such as this whose specific design is to do nothing more than fill up space on click bait-driven websites and at the end of local television newscasts, but that in itself holds an ironic Sword of Damocles over the entire equation.

To live in any place on the globe where almost half of those whom I'm sharing this experience with say they could completely care less about even considering an opportune moment to make a change for something better in whatever way they choose is demoralizing and saddening to me.

Sure, it might seem like just the moribund turning point in the lifespan of what's become a passé tradition, but to me it quakes volumes about what we might actually value in our lives and world, as well as our collective belief in the ability to create a future worth having - both for ourselves and each other.

As I write this, 2025 is only two-and-a-half days, or approximately 60 hours old, and there's still almost 363 days or 8,724 hours remaining before we reach another "new" year. And that means there's still plenty of time to identify a resolution for the days, weeks, and months which lie ahead.

So if you haven't done so already, why don't you take just a moment of the precious time and energy you've been gifted to have this experience we call "life", and pull yourself away from whatever screen you're so omni-glued to so you can consider something you'd honestly like to achieve or resolve in the coming rotations of Mother Earth. It certainly wouldn't hurt to at least try it out. And if nothing else, it will serve to remind you that you possess the ability to make a change for the better in so many ways, whenever you damn well feel like it...and it doesn't even have to be New Year's.