Why a New Year Should Never Mean a 'New You'

When the glitter and the Dick Clark stutters settle from the glamorous festivities of New Year's Eve, party-goers are left hungover, bummed about their inevitable return to work, and - for whatever reason - more self-conscious than ever. I'm here to shout it loud and clear: never develop a new you for a new year.

Our culture makes bank on the idea that we're not only (abruptly and dejectedly) imperfect beings when January 1st rolls around, but it counts on us admitting to being fat slobs, having the mind of a bumpkin and being more willing to sleep with the next thing that walks around the corner than Lindsay Lohan is to show her vagina to the world. The reality, is that new years should never be about starting anew; they should be about continuing all of those good things otherwise left behind in the prior year. What you need is not a new you, what you need is a better you.

Mind you, when I say a "better you," I don't mean that you should pick up the phone and order a Total Gym; I mean that you would be better off focusing on the things you know you already do well and nurturing those things rather than pretending you're interested in having Chuck Norris abs or making yourself "more organized." (Let's be honest, those folders are going in the trash the very second February rolls around.)

What's worse, is no one seems to be encouraging the "new you" for any of the right reasons. QVC is not selling you its workout machines and magic diet plans to make you feel better about yourself, they're selling it to you with the promise that your husband will love you more, or that you might finally pick up that guy at the bar who may have thought your muffin top wasn't quite as cute as your face. At the end of the day, like just about everything else in the world, it's about sex.

Similarly, the idea of you changing your entire physical appearance and emotional framework in a month's time is about as likely as any SEPTA platform evolving into King's Cross Station in the next ten years. It's not going to happen, and it's going to lead you through a disheartening loop...only when you make it full circle, you're going to be faced with a lonely Valentine's Day and an unopened box of Godiva's leftover from Christmas.

I am instead going to embolden the "better you" part of my theory: it's much easier and certainly more productive to challenge yourself to better the aspects of your personality and skill set you already know you're proficient with. In some cases, it may mean merely reevaluating how you view certain angles of yourself, and looking at those angles in a sharpened light.

For example, I have never claimed to be the most put together or systematic individual. My room is often a disaster zone, with clothes spread across my floor and an uncleaned wine glass sitting on my desk (admittedly sometimes for more than a week). Surely, I could opt to clean the glass and hang my clothes in the closet, but doing so isn't something that necessarily satisfies what I want, it just satisfies an imaginary person who I might envision criticizing me for maintaining a different lifestyle than what they lead. Lately, I look at my empty wine glass (or martini glass - I've been in a cosmo mood as of late), and approach it with a different mindset - a smile, even. The little bit of wine hunkered toward the bottom of the glass reminds me of my quirky unwillingness to finish much of what I start, and at the same time, the red "legs" left on the sides of the glass leading to the small liquid pool settled at the bottom call attention to how every unorganized, incomplete, batshit thought I have running through my mind eventually leads me to a pool of something.

My point, as ambiguous and untailored as it may seem, is that these small things are representative of who we are; they're reminders that we have our own primmed facets to our personalities that separate us from that archetypical hunk of "perfect" man meat displayed on that new treadmill. Don't succumb to superficial pressures under the idea that it will "help you get laid" or lure in your dream man. Uncovering the things you want from a date, a sex partner or relationship will mean equipping yourself with the qualities you want others to see in you, not the traits you're told others want to see in you.

And if your gentleman caller isn't happy with your flabs or your messy room, there is one simple and effective solution: throw your one-week-old glass of wine in their face.