By: Arell Shilling
 

About this time, most people's New Year's Resolutions are where they belong, in the back of our mind's festering, but not really actively going anywhere. By Jan. 2, most people will have done the opposite of their full year's intentions: maybe you waited 24 hours before cheating on your girlfriend/boyfriend, again, or you did a low carb hour, instead of 365 consecutive days, or perhaps you fell face first off the wagon (how can you be expected to hold on with a beer in each hand?), whatever it is, don't beat yourself up over it. The New Year shouldn't be so damn pressuring, with all its well wishes for it to be the official, "best year yet". Give me a break, don't hurt yourself attempting to change the world with your New Year's Resolution, instead, keep yourself constant, people probably like you better that way anyway.

Some of your friends probably met you when you were in High School, that means they "remember you when... " When you wore your hair like Kurt Cobain, when you wore Britney Spear's (pre-K-Fed) style mini-skirts, when your pants sagged to your knee caps and breaking mailboxes was more fun than eating- back then, they thought you were awesome, so why make some big effort to change? Your high school friends met you in your pre-beer-gut days, they still appreciate the way you pimped out your piece of crap car, they still tell stories about you peeing in bottles in the back of the class room- don't change, stay that guy. You liked him right?

If your friends didn't meet you in High School, they met you when you were wasted and falling over in college, when you were testing the efficiency of condoms 5 times a day like a lab rabbit. Your friends liked you then, fear of getting an STD from you an all, don't let them down... stay dirty.

Or maybe you met your friends, at the bar (applause for our favorite place). Ah the bar, where the lights are dim and everyone is a little prettier. Where the men grow balls and the women cop attitudes. Maybe you met randomly, someone bought a round of shots, you toasted new friends and now have side by side stools that no one else is allowed to sit in. You think those guys want you to change, to better yourself in a stupid New Year's Resolution that you will not even freaking remember by April. Hell no they don't. No one likes to drink alone, so throw the 'stop boozing' one right out the window, your partner in crime will cry at the sight of your empty stool and more than likely end up taking your shot too. Keep the friendship alive, keep drinking.

The New Year shouldn't be about changing your life for the better, it should be about remembering all the good you have now. So your 20 pounds over weight, that makes you a little squishy-er in the sack, people like that. So you cheat on your girlfriend/boyfriend everyday, you bang someone on the side like a screen door in a hurricane, hey, at least your consistent. As for as working out goes, if you shopped at the mall this Holiday, you got enough exercise, all that standing in line is hard ass work. Don't give up gambling, don't stop smoking, do whatever makes you happy. So, this year, if you have to make some stupid promise to yourself, make it this- Screw New Year's Resolutions, we like you just fine.