Once asked, the questions become a competitive game of goal-making, manifesting, and unrealistic endeavours. Through a quick lookup on the Google trend for “New Year Resolution” from the last five years, there is a serious spike in interest for the term around December, January, and February. The scale is measured based on people's interest over time, where 100 is peak popularity, and the number descends as the trend fades away. Interestingly, comparing 2018 to 2020 Google trend, the interest spike is at 100 in the year 2018, and it is only at 78 in the year 2020.

A reasonable amount of goals is healthy, and this pandemic has changed the perception of goals and new year resolution to many. For instance, a person’s 2022 new year resolution is no longer about travelling to Europe, but about being kinder to their mental health. The preliminary act of goal-making brings motivation and encouragement to us all, but usually when these goals meet the world, they are forgotten almost a month later. New year resolution, emphasising on the “year” provokes a delusional quality to how much we can achieve. The practice of over-prescribing goals converts these rushes of adrenaline to stress, and as we are occupied with the daily life happenings, we forget about the initial aspiration we set for ourselves, and taking this “risk” can bring more harm than good to the new year.

Here is a selection of anonymous new year resolutions (2021 and 2022), from students in the BK and beyond. These fragments of goals and comments may have crossed your mind, and encourage you to think further (or look back) at your collection of resolutions.