Ten attainable resolutions for 2017

By Drew Thomas, January 17 2016 —

The semester is now well underway and you’ve probably failed to keep your New Year’s resolution already. No judgement here — going to the gym daily or quitting drunk-texting is hard. Still, to make sure your 2017 isn’t a total wash, the Gauntlet devised 10 achievable goals for this semester.

1. Try to eat a little healthier. Limit yourself to only one bowl of instant noodles per day. All of that sodium is bad for you. Life is best in moderation, so if you only eat one pint of ice cream per tedious assignment, you’re actually ahead of the game.

2. Utilize what time you have rushing between classes to your advantage by getting a brisk jog in. Even class time can be used to your advantage — desk butt crunches in a large auditorium usually go unnoticed.

3. Cry only once per exam. We all know that your professor is a sadist and gets some sort of sick pleasure out of seeing students break down while trying to answer the questions. Don’t give them too many tears as victory.

4. Try and meet new people. A small smile and a “hello!” goes a long way to making university life somewhat bearable. You’ll make friends to share the misery with for one semester, then pass in the halls like you never knew them.

5. Don’t let the existential dread seep in. Don’t let it in!

6. Enjoy the little things — like a warm wind, a good grade or the hope that your ridiculously overpriced degree will help you find a job that allows you to persist in the capitalistic world.

7. Attempt to make it to office hours for the course you’re struggling with. We’re not actually suggesting you actually go to office hours. Merely considering it counts.

8. Change up your stress-coping mechanism. If you’re a lip chewer or fingernail biter, try running. If you’re a smoker, try adding in recreational drugs or alcohol to spice up your life.

9. Utilize your textbooks to their fullest potential. They can be used to build a passable shelter. With the exorbitant house prices, this may be the most efficient use of textbooks — it’s not like you were going to read them, anyway.

10. Give yourself a little grace. By that, we mean give yourself whatever self-serving sycophantic mantra you need to get you through the semester, like “I can’t even” or “if you can’t handle me at my worst, you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”

This article is part of our humour section