“What are your New Year’s Resolutions?”

We all face the question in early January, followed by check-ins from people trying to show off how impressive their own accomplishments are. (Either that or they genuinely care about you, in which case bravo, you win! Scroll to the bottom of the article for your prize!)

When you inevitably don’t keep up on your diet, spending cutbacks, or other life-changing commitments because you bit off more than you can chew, how are you supposed to respond? Here are some of the more creative ways that can help you ignore or avoid questions about your progress (and sanity).

Fill 125% of your schedule

Who knew that planning every block of your calendar by 15 minute intervals would leave you with so little time? Meals, errands, naps, conversations, snacks, restroom breaks, and all that’s not to mention booking time to update your calendar. Goodness, that’s a lot of overlap. Might as well organize things by color to make it easier to read. Different font styles would probably help too. And you definitely need to make a physical copy in case the digital one gets corrupted.

Don’t forget about scheduling the time to go to the store to buy a new calendar when you inevitably make a mistake and have to start over.

Adopt a new belief system

There’s nothing like fundamentally changing the basis of all your morality and guiding principles to freshen up your life. If that happens to coincide with restricting your ability to follow through with a previous resolution, so be it. This is a very serious decision that you should reevaluate every New year in a panicked state of mind. You can always forgive past mistakes by making new and exciting ones!

Become allergic to them

It’s truly surprising how many things humans can become allergic to. Did you know that some tick bites can give you an allergy to red meat? Now imagine if you will, an allergy to sweat. An allergy to prolonged concentration. An allergy to thinking! Who’s going to fact check you, a doctor? Don’t go near them, you might be allergic!

Fall apart

This is probably the easiest option of them all. Who can truly keep up with the world at this point? An overload of information, the pressure of war, famine, and disease. Are you doomscrolling? Stop using social media, it’s bad for you. But don’t miss out on relevant topics, you’ll only learn about them via social media.

The stress of balancing finances in a system that is (statistically) against your very existence; people expecting you to maintain social, familial, and work obligations all at the same time. All of that, and don’t forget to get 8 hours of sleep, 60 minutes of exercise, and to eat healthy, fresh, balanced meals every day.

Don’t do too much, you’ll burn out. Don’t do too little, you’ll feel guilty. Don’t exist outside of societal norms, you’ll be judged. Don’t be too normal, if you’re not unique and popular then you’re a failure. Do something impressive and creative with your life! But don’t do something that’s already been done, people will claim you’re lazy, unoriginal, or worse: not worth the effort.

Let’s face it: this one will probably happen eventually anyway. It’s okay, we have all sorts of medications and therapy to help with that now. Your deductible is about a quarter of your income, and your copay is $100. Don’t complain, it could be worse!

Pay someone else to do it for you

Often, the best way to get rid of a problem is to throw money at it. It works for the rich literally every single day. Why not use it to your advantage? Drain your savings, sell your collectibles, and rid yourself of that weight on your shoulders. (Possibly literally, depending on your workout routine.)

Claim that you’ll start tomorrow

Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? If you’re motivated enough, tomorrow never comes, so you’re in the clear! Seriously, people make songs about it and everything. Makes you wonder how anything is ever accomplished.

Come to terms with your insignificance

You may have learned about the vastness of space, the trillions of galaxies and planets that exist in the void, and how monumental it is that we are living, sentient pieces of the universe that get to experience itself. This is a fascinating and wonderful point of view, but it is obviously wishful thinking. With so many planets what we do here on earth will affect less than a trillionth of the universe. With that, you can safely disregard all of your responsibilities and roam free*.

*Except for all of the tangible responsibilities that you have. You still matter a lot to the IRS.

Learn a new language

The best thing about learning a new language isn’t the fact that you will improve your brain’s plasticity, that you will experience new horizons, or that you will understand a greater portion of the world and its wonders. No, the best part is that you will get to pretend you no longer speak your original language. 申し訳ありませんが、あなたが話している新年の抱負が分かりません。今からゲームをします。

Plug your ears and say “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

Regardless of the responsibilities that you have, falling back on classics is a fun way to mix things up. Seriously, when’s the last time that you tried this? It could totally work still. Probably.

Binge “The Office” again

Just face it, you’re about as creative and funny as the twelfth watchthrough of the show is. Don’t forget to question whether it’s actually as good as you remember, or the fact that you’re no longer at the right time in your life to watch it. Questioning your decisions, while being constantly distracted by the droning monotony of something that used to bring you joy is a great way to keep from having time and energy for literally anything else.

Try to start playing Dungeons and Dragons

The goal is actually to make yourself the most available person in the party. It doesn’t matter if it’s 3 people or 7, the inevitable scheduling conflicts will make you perpetually both available for the game and unavailable for anything else. This works best with people who fail to respond with their availability until the day of play.

Move and create a new identity

If you’re the type to make huge commitments and instantly regret them, you certainly know the pain of the associated guilt very well. The best way for someone like you is probably to become someone completely new. That way, any responsibilities tied to your previous life will be washed away, much like the washing of the funds needed to make this type of possibility happen.

Go into witness protection

This is a riskier alternative, but the bright side is that there will be no way for anyone besides the authorities to follow up with you about your resolutions. The hard part is finding the right type of crime to witness and bring forward without getting yourself 86’ed. Hope you’re good at dodging bullets!

Sign up for an isolation experiment

The bad news is that this option is a limited solution: eventually you’ll be freed from the experiment and have to deal with your thoughts and actions in the outside world again. The good news is that you’ll probably be so broken and sensitive to stimuli that you’ll have forgotten all about whatever resolutions you made in favor of finding out what that ticking noise that’s existed in the background your whole life truly is. Plus, you’ll get a nice check!

Have your memory surgically altered

This one might get a little pricey if you’re doing this on your own dime. However if you volunteer with the government, not only will they do it pro bono, but you’ll learn neat skills! Unfortunately they will be tied to trigger phrases, and you won’t remember them after completion of your mission. It’s probably for the best, to be honest.

Practice social distancing

If you were a responsible person, you’d probably be doing this one already. At this point, you’re so deep into the article that we both know that’s not the case. So, here’s a refresher:

• Stay at least 6 feet from others at all times
• Wear a mask (KN95 or better is preferred) whenever around others, especially indoors
• Practice good hygiene though handwashing
• Keep hand sanitizer on you in the event that you are not near a sink
• Avoid direct eye contact
• Unlearn your social skills
• Become a recluse
• Begin learning to get good at a skill (darts, for example!)
• Horde toilet paper and other essentials
• Await the inevitable apocalypse
• After 1-2 years, give up on all of this and simply hope that you and those around you won’t suffer any long-term effects from your bad decisions
• Be surprised when things start to get worse again, but still choose to ignore the lessons that you learned because that would take effort

Have (or adopt) a baby

This one is obviously a commitment, but that’s also good news. For the next 18 years to life, you have a rock-solid excuse to get you out of almost any commitment! Well, any commitment except for those related to the child. Don’t worry, you get used to dirty diapers and throw up pretty quickly.

Get Canceled on social media

First, make sure you find yourself an exceptionally bad take. Next, add some hashtags and post away. Be sure you’re antagonistic to every single comment (both for and against your take). Congratulations, you played yourself! Good thing it was all part of your plan. Just make sure you’ve never shared any identifiable information on the internet ever, or you might find yourself getting doxxed instead of simply hated ignored / hatewatched. Still, it’s a small price to pay to forget about a self-imposed obligation!

Stop bathing

The best defense against questions? A good offensive smell. You may get the occasional question here and there, but once they get a good whiff of you they will likely suddenly remember obligations that they have elsewhere. Just don’t be hurt if your friends don’t stand downwind.

Become Santa Claus

The bad news is that you may have accidentally knocked off the previous Santa and are now filling his shoes. The good news is, you’re going to be busy the entire year round trying to keep up with trends, technology, and elf unions. By the time you see anyone that you may have told your resolutions to in the first place, it will have been almost a full year.

They’ll only have an eye for presents, spiked eggnog, and ignore their own responsibilities until the New Year comes. Plus, you’re more or less immortal until you choose to take a fall yourself, and delegating responsibilities is probably something that can also be delegated itself now.

Start a cult

A fantastic way to have very little responsibility is to make sure all of your followers view you as a god. Or at least the vessel for the Dark One to take over when he returns to raze the world and burn the nonbelievers. Really, you can get away with just about anything if you’re successful enough. Plus, if you successfully convince others that it’s actually a religion you’ll also be tax exempt! The downside is that you’ll have to sacrifice your conscience and/or soul, but at this point are you really using it?

Become a speedrunner

This one might have the largest skill barrier to entry. For most people, video games are a relaxing break from the stresses of life. If you commit yourself to learning a speedrun for a game or two however, it will quickly become one of the most stressful aspects of your life.

Forget about any commitments to friends, family or jobs, your life is now Donkey Kong 64. Eat only bananas, fall asleep to the DK Rap, and dream of the best and most optimized lines to guide your character on to save milliseconds.

Even worse, if you aren’t going glitchless, you can find yourself spending dozens of hours probing the invisible walls in game and hundreds of hours researching code to see if there are any other exploits available that you haven’t considered yet. Who has time for anything else when you’re aiming for sub-30 times just to get into the top 10? You may start with no style and have no grace, but by the end nobody will be laughing at your funny face.

Run for Office

The best thing about running for office is that you don’t actually have to follow through with anything. If you resolved to cure hangovers, eat 50 bazillion summer sausages, and jump from Berlin to the Moon using a pogo stick made out of dried spaghetti, nobody would bat an eye. If anyone mentioned it again, you could ignore the question, state it was out of context, or simply talk about all of the accomplishments that occurred while you were alive somewhere. Unfortunately, this is another pricey one, but that can be mitigated by selling your soul for a nice chunk of change to the highest bidding corporation(s).

Congratulations, you either have a great support network or successfully avoided any personal responsibility for your alleged resolutions! You could have simply ignored them, or even better not made any, but you’re better than that. Well, better is a relative term here, but at least you’ll have an interesting story for the movie they make celebrating your choices (or lack thereof).

Happy New Year!