Every January, I get a pretty solid reminder that although I'd like to be a stronger, more disciplined person, I end every December and begin the New Year as same old me. Over the years, I've tried to set myself New Year's Resolutions, and they've slowly grown more vague, existential and harder to quantify before this year came around and I gave up trying to improve myself.
It's been liberating, and I'm sure there are many of you who have lived through six days of 2019 and realised that shelling out for that gym membership, finding that amazing relationship or writing that novel is a lot harder work than you realised.
Some of you might've already given up on those lofty goals, and if you're anything like this poor New Yorker, it's a lot easier to do than it first seems. Setting New Year's Resolutions is a lot like deciding to volunteer; yes, it's an amazing thing to do, but you realise that everybody's got the same idea as you.
Standing in a salad bar is a pain in the neck at the best of times, but when there's lines in front of you as big as this, it can be really easy to ditch the New Year's Resolution entirely. New York is full of people, and full of people desperately trying to better themselves, and this came to its logical conclusion in hilarious fashion.
Yup, if you want to grab a salad in New York City over the next week or so, good luck: they're apparently packed to the rafters with wannabe healthy eaters as the beginning of January rolls around, and boy are some of the locals upset.
"The last few days after New Year’s have been crazy because of the resolutions and people wanting to eat healthy," explained one man outside of a Chopt on West 51st Street in New York City, while another summed up the mood in fewer (but no less powerful) words: "You guys can go f–k yourselves!"
Yeah, people are... not happy. "It’s always the busiest time of the year, right after New Year’s. Everyone decides to be healthier for their New Year’s resolution," explained one worker, while 46-year-old Maya Dillon said while walking out of a Just Salad: "Yesterday, there was a line out the door."
But on the other hand, while the healthy places were seeing lines for days, the usual retreats were ghost towns in comparisons. At a nearby McDonald's, a security guard explained: "Usually, it’s very, very busy. Today — very, very slow."
While everyone's rushing to the nearest gym or salad bar as the dust settles on the New Year, it must be pretty hard for you who've adopted healthy eating practices all throughout the year to get absolutely anything done. But, it's definitely not going to be for long: give it a week, and things will mostly be back to normal.