4 Great Ways To Get Off To A Hot Start In 2018

WJ Cope7 years ago

The period between Christmas and the new year is without a doubt the absolute most boring, least productive time of the entire year, and it’s probably got you doing little more than posting up on your parents’ couch and sleeping through the last few episodes of Ozark or Stranger Things 2. That’s all well and good, but too often I’ve found that the laziness of the last week of the year will carry over into the next one, and that’s got to be avoided at all costs. After all, you’ve got a busy 2018 ahead of you. There are things to do, people to see, places to go. Here are a few things you can do to properly gear up for a banner year.

Throw your year-long resolutions in the trash

Oh, so you’re going to somehow bench 275 or become your school’s study drug kingpin by the end of next year? Having the deadline for your goal twelve months away creates a false sense of security that will probably lead you to failure. Even by the time it’s mid-February and you haven’t set foot in a gym or have sold a staggeringly weak number of amphetamines, you’ll think you’re okay because you’ve still got a lot of time left. Instead, try setting some goals that you have to accomplish by the end of January, and go from there.

Sell off your shitty Christmas gifts

Look, your family probably means well, and it was very nice of them to get your degenerate ass any gifts at all. Unfortunately, you probably have an aunt that saw a photo of you wearing a Matt Stafford jersey back in 2009 and has given you Lions merch every year since. Since Aunt Carol refuses to chill the fuck out, you now have a Lions clock, calendar, backpack, umbrella, cheese grater, laptop decal, and a framed photo signed by the great Jon Kitna.

A productive year-end move is to fire up your computer and put up listings for the Kitna memorabilia as well as the other gifts you got that fall on the more useless end of the spectrum. This will have you feeling like you’ve accomplished something while simultaneously putting some cash in your pocket.

Get some new clothes

***MAN OUTFITTERS PLUG?***

It’s not going to feel like a new year if you’re still wearing most of the same old shit. Now’s the time to look at your wardrobe and come to terms with how painfully outdated a lot of it probably is. Given that we’re rounding the corner toward the end of this decade, you can’t be dressing like you did back when everyone was Harlem Shaking and making Jerry Sandusky jokes. Something as simple as wearing new clothes can go a long way toward making people forget the more cringeworthy moments you had in 2017, and that’s reason enough to retire that worn Kony 2012 shirt.

Fine-tune your substance abuse

Right off the bat, I want to say that I am in no way advocating the use of illegal substances.

Plenty of people will have New Year’s resolutions that involve giving up drugs or alcohol. That is absolutely a healthy and admirable thing to do, but the reality is that it’s just not realistic for a lot of people. Spring semester absolutely sucks compared to the fall, and the thought of going through it sober makes me shiver. Still, it might be worthwhile to evaluate what your substances of choice are doing for you.

Maybe you hit the bottle a bit too much last semester and it caused your grades to suffer. Perhaps you used to pop a few millis of Adderall to help with studying, but now you can’t start your day without a 30mg XR. It could be a good move to stop altogether or at least cut back on stuff like Xanax and blow, as these are highly addictive and can really hurt you in the long run. Hell, maybe even look into micro-dosing as an alternative to amphetamines. If you’re already using substances, you might as well make them work for you as well as possible.

Whether you take any of my advice or not, there’s no excuse for you to limp into 2018 and get off to a slow start. You’re young and you live in the best country in the world. Get out there and have a big year..