This is it. 

This is going to be your year. You already feel like a brand new person as the clock ticks down from 10…9…8… you can feel it.

 Head brimming with the ambitious dreams you have in an organized checklist on the notes app of your iPhone. 3…2…1… Happy New Year! 

And so begins the start of a new decade. 2020. The year where your checklist sat untouched and unchecked. The year where you achieved exactly nothing. 

I think it’s safe to say that if you related to that story at all you’re not alone. 

You would think that with all the extra months we were given in between school people would’ve accomplished something… or anything.

Maybe during the excuse of a summer we had, you could’ve actually redecorated your room like you wanted to. But you never really got to that, did you? You were too busy scrolling through Tik Tok and complaining about 2020. 

Yeah, me too.

Cal High sophomore Tasha Singh shares a similar tragic story. Her main goals? Get good grades, clear skin, and lose weight. How many of those things did she achieve? None. Nada. Zilch. 

“I thought quarantine lifestyle was temporary, but then it became a habit,” Singh said. 

If you need a translation “quarantine lifestyle” is synonymous for doing absolutely nothing throughout the day, and reaching a peak mental state sometime after midnight.

But seriously, don’t feel like you wasted a whole year. Colleges will understand. There’s a pandemic. People are dying. It was hard to concentrate on exercising. Plus that would mean you have to hit pause on “Criminal Minds”, take your hand out of the Hot Cheeto bag, roll out of your warm, comfy bed, walk downstairs, and actually, like, get on a treadmill. 

I know what you’re thinking: “All of my friends did something productive this year. Why didn’t I?”

You know what? I feel that, but I did do something interesting. How many people can boast that they’ve seen every single episode of every single Gordon Ramsay show ever released? Twice? Ha! Got you there, didn’t I? 

Ok, full disclosure I admit it definitely feels like I’m running out of time. With the complete waste 2020 has been it looks like there is absolutely no hope for me getting into college. Whatever shall I do?

Wait. What’s that? It looks like… a bird? No! It’s a plane! No, wait! It’s…2021!

My hero! 

Yes, I do plan on procrastinating every single notable achievement I have to make into one year. As a matter of fact, it is one of my New Years’ resolutions and it will totally work. 

And hey, if you happen to be in the same boat as I am – that boat being The Titanic – I have a solution.

More New Year’s resolutions for 2022! I’m thinking something along the lines as, “have better time management”.

Ok who am I kidding? This 4,000 year old New Year’s tradition never works out. Who even came up with it? Who thought to themselves, “Hey! I have a brilliant idea! How about we magically turn 7.7 billion people productive on the count of 10?” 

In what world would that work? I can’t even stick to a set agenda for one day, let alone a whole year. 

At least I have 70 more New Years to fix that. Maybe I’ll finally finish everything on my checklist in 2090.

Or maybe I’ll revisit Gordon Ramsay just a couple more times.