Party Like It's 2012!

            So, apparently this is the last year before the end of the world or whatever. I don’t believe this at all, and I’m very much looking forward to watching 2012 on January 1, 2013. However, I do think it’s time for some serious New Year’s Resolutions, what with the world ending pretty soon and whatnot. So what’ll it be this year? What mundane life changes will I subject myself to for a while and then wordlessly abandon about halfway through January? I don’t really understand the purpose of a New Year’s Resolution because essentially you’re trying to make drastic life changes in the time it takes for the clock to change from 11:59 pm (New Year’s Eve) to 12:00 am (New Year’s Day). It just doesn’t work. Self-improvement is a work in progress, an accomplishment reached by making every day better than the last. I mean, just think about it. If your New Year’s Resolution was to drink less alcohol…I’m pretty sure well over half of the American population failed that one just last night…

           

            The number one most popular New Year’s Resolution is to exercise and eat healthy foods, which I think everyone could use a little more of. I’m pretty sure my life is an endless battle between my love for food and my desire to not be fat, and oddly I’m okay with that. I just love food way too much. I eat when I’m happy. I eat when I’m sad. I eat when I’m stressed. I eat when I’m bored. I eat when I can’t sleep (which is most nights). Let’s face it, working out “when I feel like it” is not a great strategy. Whenever I’m laying on my couch thinking “Maybe I should work out today,” I just eat something until the feeling passes. And then I feel guilty, which makes me eat more. It’s a vicious cycle. If I didn’t have an Asian metabolism, I would be really fat. When watching The Biggest Loser is a stressful activity, you know you have problems. I’m the type of person who probably should not be watching reality television. I get way too into it. The Biggest Loser is just too much for me to handle. Whoever named that show was ironically cruel. I mean, to commend obese people for adopting a healthy lifestyle while simultaneously mocking them? Brilliant. But cruel. Anyway, this show stresses me out for two reasons. 1) I feel like I should work out more because I’m afraid that Jillian Michaels is going to show up at my door and brutally murder me if I let myself get fat. And 2) People on that show typically lose like 200 pounds…This concept freaks me out because I feel like if I ever lost 200 pounds…I would cease to exist. I could work myself right out of existence. So maybe, I SHOULDN’T work out…New Year’s Resolution? Watch less reality television.  

            In all seriousness though, I am determined to make this year better than last year. So my official New Year’s Resolution for 2012 is this: Live as if the world was ending. Walk a little taller. Work a little harder. Be a little kinder. Let the people I love know I love them. Happy New Year, everyone! Now, go forth and BE AWESOME. 

The Despondency Experiment

Remember the gummy bears. ;)

            Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it. My life is awesome, especially when I’m here at home. I don’t have any sort of impending deadlines for school assignments or social dilemmas to sort through. All relaxation, no stress. Except that’s the problem. My problem is that I have NO PROBLEMS. I feel like bursting into a chorus of “It’s Too Heavenly Here,” like Charlie from All Dogs Go to Heaven 2. Basically, I’m going insane…I mean, I actually watched All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, if that’s any indication.

Even when I’m at school, though, I feel like I live a charmed life. Nothing ever goes wrong for me. Ever. I always get the classes I want exactly when I want to take them. No matter how short my attention span, my teachers always love me. I get straight A’s, and everything is easy. Let’s face it. I’m good at school. And life. I’m so good, in fact, that I feel the need to procrastinate absolutely all responsibilities until the last possible second. For dramatic effect, of course. One time, I forgot to take my Advanced Writing final online before it closed. I e-mailed my professor in a panic, and he told me not to worry about it and that he’d send me the link to the final right away. Why? Because I ate gummy bears for breakfast in his class every morning, and I shared them with him. “I remember the gummy bears,” he wrote in his return e-mail, and he even included a picture of the world’s largest gummy bear, for my entertainment. That is solid proof that gummy bears for breakfast everyday can save your life.

Anyway, back to the problem. When life is too easy, where’s the fun in that? No one wants to read a story about someone with a perfect life. Good stories are about trouble, which is why I feel an obligation to the future readers of my best-selling autobiography to occasionally shake things up a bit. I thought long and hard about this, and I said to myself “Hm…I wonder what sad feels like?” So, I resolved to pretend to be depressed for a few days, just to see if I could pull it off. I planned to spend my days wallowing in self-pity, listening to whiny emo music, sighing and looking out windows at the dark, cruel world beyond, and generally playing the part of the poor, unfortunate soul in a sad, sad movie. That’s right, if the sun shines wrong, I would be the first to complain. Except, I found out that being sad is not all it’s cracked up to be. Actually, it’s kind of a downer. If you’re going to try out an emotion just for the heck of it, don’t pick depression. Why? Because it will suck you in like a black hole, that’s why. The second you start to feel sorry for yourself because you spilled scalding hot coffee on your left hand at work and now your skin is starting to fall off, making you look like you have leprosy, life will give you infinitely more reasons to feel less than awesome. So, I decided that I like having very little to worry about, and I’ll save the tempests and rainclouds for the characters in my future best-selling novels.  

Through this experiment, I realized that self-pity is a sentiment that I am simply not capable of. Who am I kidding? I was born to be a shiny, happy person. People ask me how I can be happy all the time. Here’s how. No matter what life throws at me, I only allow myself seven minutes of sadness, and then I laugh it off, make fun of my problems. Because life is too short to be depressed. I lied before. My life isn’t perfect, but I love it anyway. J