I've worked in a supercenter for over sixteen years now. That's long enough to know that Christmas totally rolls out before Halloween is done. Thanksgiving is just a tiny blip on the radar. Swimsuits stop being sold one month into summer and you can't buy a winter hat no matter how frigid cold it is past mid February (it snows here well into April).
The other thing I've seen these past sixteen years is that New Year's Resolutions is a season. We fill the store with exercise equipment endcaps, weights, water bottles, yoga mats. The seasonal area (you know, where Holidays and garden time live) fills with vitamins, diet bars, protein shakes, the list goes on and on. The grocery side of the store runs ads and sales on "the healthy foods." It's tradition. People want to hope for a fresh start in January. Right? And the stores market to that.
Not this year. I have the vast majority of my Valentines AND Easter displayer out right now. A few hit the floor before Christmas was over. The main aisles house a slew of Valentines items. The seasonal pad... can you guess what it's gone to now that the 90% off Christmas clearance has been stormed? GARDEN! Mind you, the Farmer's Almanac estimates our last frost date to be MAY 2. GARDEN?
I noticed on facebook this month that almost no one was posting New Year's Resolution related things. I noticed that more people posted New Year's Resolution mocking memes and comments than that actually posted the fresh start ideas. Maybe my friends are just extra cynical. I can go with that. But the enormous store I work in too? Who decided that 2020 was the year that the New Year's Resolutions tradition dies?
Politics and political discourse has ramped up in the absolute most negative way. Political ideologies are tearing people apart in a way they never have before, or at least haven't in modern times. Social media is giving people an outlet to be cruel and heartless in ways that my generation and all those before us could have never imagined. More and more children are smoking and using other illegal substances at very young ages. Caffeine and sugar (too of my favorite things) are the fuel that much of the population runs on. The world is right at the very edge of war. And now is when we've decided that we're over this fresh new start thing? Really?
Has anyone else noticed that New Year's Resolutions seemingly became out of date this year?
A whole new decade. A whole new way of life. We're too good for goals and new beginnings now?
I feel I am growing old very quickly.
I like a fresh start, though January is a get through it month for me. I'm avoiding stores as entertainment so hadn't noticed the lack of fresh start items, but I'm curious.
ReplyDeleteI think goals have replaced resolutions. I don't think anyone has given up new beginnings. I think people are forever optimists. Well, that is how I see it.
ReplyDeleteConsole yourself, Rivulet, this gal makes her new start, especially financially. I haven't posted a NYR but I try a new fresh start each month, looking at different areas of my life each month.
ReplyDeleteI always have goals, & track them. It's certainly nothing I'd mention on Facebook, but I've been trying to avoid Facebook (as well as the news) as much as possible due to your other point about politics.
ReplyDeleteI am considering this year the year of small tweaks & habits vs 100%, game on, fully new "me", if that makes sense.
I don't know if folks have given up on a new year/fresh start per se but anything is better than this whole "making resolutions for the year that get forgotten before the sun sets on January.
ReplyDeleteJut because a calendar turns a page to a new year doesn't mean everyone needs or wants to overhaul their lives. It's such an artificial thing, the whole Jan. 1 means changing your life. Maybe folks are getting smarter and making the change they need when they need them and ignoring what business try to shove down their throats in their commercial cyclical calendar of selling hype.
But you know me, I'm the blogger who ralliess against the whole "new year/buy more storage containers to "organize" your life thing when what we need is less CRAP to organize/hoard/clutter our lives". ;-)
I am not exactly sure what I think about all of this. There is a new generation with a ton of buying power who think differently than past generations and I imagine resolution setting is one thing they may have tossed. Not necessarily abandoning goals but just abandoning the concept of a New Year New Start.
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