My New Year’s resolution is to . . .  

. . . stop lying to myself.

Mikayla Magdziarz | Columnist

You know those recurring whispers of self-doubt? It’s 2021, and it’s time to terminate them. Self-doubt has never served me, but does it ever serve anyone? I am confident and capable, so why are false thoughts telling me otherwise during the heat of a moment? I know I’m not alone in this — we’re only human.

But this year I’m serious about setting this mental tone. For me, it’s about time wasted and energy tainted by these silly little loops of false thought. Once I come to my senses and realize my truth, it always leads me back to certainty. How I analyze my thoughts can range from journal entries to meditation to simply going for a walk. Recognizing the falsity of the thought when it comes is the first step of training yourself to be more confident, and this year I am on guard and ready to strike them down.

. . . break my nicotine addiction.

Jack Baudoin| Columnist

Everyone has their vices, something that quenches an urge or fulfills a desire. For me, that vice has been nicotine, and that’s the vice that I want to break in the new year. I have been smoking for close to four years now, and whether it’s the cigarettes I smoked for years or the vape that I am using now, I am continuing to allow myself to be addicted to something. The fact that there is a chemical that I have to take in order to go about my day in a normal manner is not something that I want to do any longer.

Breaking an addiction is never easy, but I did it once cold turkey and broke my addiction to nicotine. 2020 was, as was for a lot of people, a very stressful time. From the global pandemic to issues in my personal life, I sadly used nicotine as a crutch, and my addiction came back. In 2021, I want to break that addiction again and never let it become a vice for me again.

. . . keep up with current events.

Aidan Bengford | Columnist

Since the pandemic started, I’ve found myself wandering in thought, not focusing on the real world. I’ve also been a lot less in-the-know of what’s going on in the world and in my own town. The world hasn’t just stopped because we all had to take a pause for  the pandemic. The issues that people care about haven’t just stopped because we are facing a bigger threat.

Wildfires have been happening across the world, and I don’t know what the end of those looked like. What happened with the Russian bounties? What about the situation in Hong Kong? What’s the status of evictions in DeKalb? I should pay closer attention to the news so that I can be a part of the solution as issues develop.