The new year can be a time of new beginnings, new goals and new attitudes towards life. In reality, however, the new year represents a week-long trial at a gym before ending up back on the couch binging Netflix because exercise is too much work. Hardly anyone completes their New Year’s resolution, so what’s the point in making one?

There is nothing wrong with goal setting. There is nothing wrong with deciding to be healthier, more outgoing or more organized. But that is not what New Year’s resolutions are. When someone makes a New Year’s resolution, they don’t make it to actually complete a goal: they make a resolution to feel productive. Very rarely have I actually heard of someone sticking to their resolution for more than a few weeks.

For example, when I was younger, I was a Girl Scout. Every year in January, I would trudge up and down the blocks of La Grange trying to sell Girl Scout cookies. Unsurprisingly, I had little success. This was due to the fact that cookie sales started just a week after the new year, so buying boxes of sugary treats did not appeal to all those who started their New Year’s diets. However, less than a month later when the cookies arrived and the diets had been forsaken, my mom received countless phone calls asking if there were any extra boxes of Samoas.

New Year’s resolutions are pointless, because there is rarely any follow through and only rarely do people actually take action to complete their goals.

The fact that almost no one completes their New Year’s resolution is well known by society. Resolutions are constantly made fun of anywhere and everywhere, even in kid’s TV shows. In the Disney Channel animated show “Phineas and Ferb,” the episode “Happy New Year!” contains a plot that revolves around the idea that no one takes New Year’s resolutions seriously. In this episode, the evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz creates a machine that cause the citizens of Danville to all have the same resolution: make Dr. Doofenshmirtz their leader. While the machine works, his plan of ruling the town fails. Why? Because the townsfolk admit that no one ever plans on completing their resolution.

Even children’s shows dismiss New Year’s resolutions as unattainable. So why do people continue to make resolutions year after year, only to give up a few weeks later?

As a society, we’re unhappy with ourselves, there is always something about ourselves that we don’t like. We’re not organized enough, we spend too much time on our phones, and we will never have the body that we dream of. We make resolutions because want to change ourselves into thinner, more outgoing, prettier versions of ourselves. New Year’s resolutions stem from our insecurities about ourselves. We create goals each year because we feel that we are not good enough.

Although I don’t believe in them, I do have a New Year’s resolution this year: I will love myself just the way I am. So this year, skip the fad diets and the gym memberships you know you won’t use. Instead, buy some Samoas and accept yourself for who you are.