NEW YEAR, NEW WORLD
Responsible New Year's Resolutions
Written by Niamh Anderson (9BNR)
New Year, New Life, New You. After the excesses of Christmas on New Year's Day many of us think about changing our ways. But how easy is it to give something up, just like that, in one day? Not very easy at all.
Take smoking, for example. If you've been daft enough to start, of course you're going to want to give it up. Not only is it bad for you but it's expensive, and it stinks. But you couldn't just have one on New Years Eve and say "Right, that's my last one ever", could you? You could resort to one a week, then one every two weeks, once a month, and then not at all. And you could find something to fill its place. Chewing gum, or mints.
But my point here is that New Years Resolutions are not all they're made out to be, and they're not easy to actually do.
To make life easier, it doesn't have to be something major like giving up smoking. It could be something like being kinder to people, or smiling more each day, or if you don't read much, try and read one book a month. Or why not make your New Year's Resolution something to help us all?
As befits our eco-friendly themed Christmas, why not try and help save our crumbling planet. Just something small and obvious, like turning off lights when you leave the room, turning off taps when brushing your teeth, turning off computers at the end off the day, and no, I don't mean that little off button on the monitor, or the button the actual computer. I mean the switch on the wall.
We should all be recycling, but are you composting in your house? And do you walk to school? If you do live too far away to walk, you could hitch a lift with one of your friends, saving petrol and making Mother Nature very happy. And turning down the heating a couple of degrees and putting on a jumper isn't exactly going to save the planet, I'll admit, but it's a start.
Whatever target you set yourself for 2010 take it one day at a time and good luck!
