Things To Buy To Make It Feel Like You're Going To Be Productive And Really Make 2020 Your Bitch
I’m quite fond of New Years resolutions. I think having a designated day to turn your life around is actually quite helpful. In general, life is stressful and you kind of lose track of your goals in exchange for, you know, getting through the day. You skip the gym and order food because it’s just so much easier that way. You drink on a Tuesday because you have to wake up on Wednesday. You send irresponsible texts on weekends just to feel something at all. But now, now it’s a new year. You can erase all the travesties of 2019 and start anew. And how do you do that? by buying things. You can’t just waltz into 2020 with the same ol’ shit and expect things to be different now, you have to buy things that make you feel like you’re going to be productive and make 2020 your bitch.
1) Quest Bars
Look, I know it, you know it, we all know it- your New Years resolution is to go to the gym. It’s the same tried and true story since freshman year of college- you kindaaaa let yourself go last year, you drank a bit much, you ate too much pizza, and now your stomach is blubber. Plus you’re another year older so your metabolism is going to shit. You have a chocolate shake and your ass jiggles for a week. Quest Bars change all of that. It’s protein so you get strong and full of fiber so you shit your brains out. It’s the best possible combination to meet your goals in one fell swoop. You don’t even need to go to the gym as long as you eat a couple Quest Bars during the day, so you’re also saving yourself some time too where you can focus on your other resolutions. Perfect.
Speaking of shitting your brains out….
2) Coffee Maker
You know that other New Years resolution you made? I do. “Save more money”. What do I spend the majority of my money on? Food. I’m not joking when I say I went to the grocery maximum of 10 times in 2019. I ate out or ordered in 95% of meals. It’s completely irresponsible and a complete waste of a ton of money. But not just for meals, I went out for coffee every day, sometimes (often) multiple times a day. And my friends, Starbucks ain’t cheap. There I was, spending at least $5 a day on coffee, AT LEAST. And the whole time I was thinking, “shit, if only there was a way to make coffee at home and not have to spend all this money. If only….”. And alas there is! They make coffee makers you can put at your house and brew your own coffee in for like, 1/100th of the price. And it tastes EXACTLY THE SAME. Incredible, right? You’ll have a little more pep in your step when you walk into work with your thermos of coffee, ready to take on the world. And then you’ll still go to Starbucks around 3pm and completely ruin your sleep for the night. But at least you’ll have that pep in your step, and that’s all that matters.
3) A Scale That Tells You All That Fancy Info Like Bone Density
You know the old saying- “why buy a scale that tells you your weight for $10 when you can buy a scale that includes 15 metrics you don’t understand for $60?” If you aren’t guilty of this one, that’s just because you haven’t turned 25 yet. Everyone over the age of 25 has bought one of these scales that spits all this meaningless information at you. You stare at your BMI, do 10 pushups, and then step back on and expect it to be different. The scale gives you all sorts of numbers and %s, none of which you understand nor care enough about to understand. You just look at that big number and lament about how it got so high. You also like to step on it before you poop and after you poop. You’d be amazed what some of those poops weigh. Nevertheless, a fancy scale with meaningless info means you’re ready to take on the year.
4) Art To Hang On Your Wall So You Feel Like An Adult
A big part of becoming an adult in the real world is realizing flags and empty liquor bottles aren’t appropriate decorations or art. Instead, you’re supposed to actually throw away the bottles and buy pictures and paintings to hang on your walls. It’s true. You aren’t supposed to just have plain white walls, you need to find things you like, get them framed, and hang them. Or in my case, hire a Task Rabbit to do it all. But still, the sentiment is the same. Having art on your walls that isn’t the Jim Belushi “College” poster means you’re not 19 anymore. Don’t worry, you can still get black out drunk every weekend, you’ll just do it in the shadow of a painting you spent $400 on, you know, like an adult.
5) A Dresser Instead Of Living Out Of Laundry Baskets
As it turns out, women are not impressed by the amount of laundry piling up in your room. Bet they wouldn’t care if it was stacks of money piling up in the corner of your room and in 3 laundry baskets on your floor, amiright? For some reason, they don’t see it as currency. Weird. Apparently, they make these things called “dressers” where you can “store clothes” after they are “washed”. I swear, you can look this up, they exist. And they are marvelous. The dresser sits on your floor, similar to the aforementioned laundry baskets, but you can put 3 baskets worth of clothes into one dresser! It’s like magic! Plus they are more aesthetically pleasing. You’ll use this dresser 2, maybe even 3 times before going back to the tried and true laundry basket method. But for those 2 to 3 times, you’ll feel good as hell about yourself.
6) A Stock
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One of the only teachers I had in high school who actually cared about the future of his student’s used to tell us “don’t work for your money, make your money work for you”. Pretty smart guy. So while you are slaving away at your job for those corporate overlords, you need to have your money working hard in the markets. So how do you do it? Well you go home, you watch “The Big Short” and now you are a financial genius. You hop onto your Merrill Lynch account and you start investing, baby. Picking stocks like you’re Jordan goddamn Belfort. Investing in ETFs and you don’t even know what ETF stands for. Bull market? Bear market? Nonsense. It’s your market. What could possibly go wrong? You’re a big swinging dick on Wall Street now baby, your bosses can kiss your ass.
7) Veggie Burgers
A well-made documentary can convince you of pretty much anything. If you’re bored on Saturday afternoon and start watching documentaries, you all of a sudden think you want to be a rock climber, a world traveler, that the world is going to end in 2 weeks, or in this case, that you should completely stop eating meat. I watched the documentary “The Game Changers” over break and I’ve never been more convinced that eating meat basically makes you the devil in disguise. Like, in my brain I know it was full of propaganda and one-sided facts, but when it’s presented as perfectly as they presented it, you immediately want to become a vegan. It’s just that convincing. So then the next time you’re at the grocery store, you pick up a box of veggie burgers. “I’ll just try them out” you think to yourself, convinced you are going to save the planet, and yourself, if you eat a few veggie patties and a salad. As it turns out they taste like spoiled peas and you immediately go to McDonald’s to wash the taste out of your mouth, but for those few minutes, you were a superhero and the definition of “new year new me”.
8) A Book
Kinda similar to the veggie patties, the idea of reading a book is a lot better in thought than in practice. I would love to read a book. I know I enjoy reading books. I just haven’t done it since 2012. It’s sad but true. I haven’t read a book front to back since 2012. That is frightening but it is what it is. But that’s why you buy a book. And it sits there and it taunts you. You look at it out of the corner of your eye while you’re sitting on your couch, scrolling Twitter. You pack it in your backpack every time you have a train or a flight to catch, and you watch movies the entire time. You tell yourself “OK. ENOUGH. I’M GOING TO READ THIS BOOK”. So you sit there and you open the book and you start reading…and you end up reading the same paragraph 10 different times because your brain is so fried from your phone that you legitimately are not wired to sit there in silence reading a book. You physically cannot do it. But at least you have a book. Try again next year.
9) A New Fancy Coat
Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, makes you feel more like an adult ready to butt fuck the world more than a fancy new coat. The first time you put on your new button down coat and walk outside, people look at you different. You are turning heads and snapping necks. Women want you, men want to be you. It gives you confidence you never knew you always needed. People will be like “new coat?” and you’ll smugly brush them off “this old thing?” as if it’s no big deal. But on the inside you know you’re just exuding big dick energy that can be felt from outer space. And then the 2nd weekend into the year you’ll have too many Red Bull Vodkas, puke all over your coat, throw in into a plastic bag, and never wear it again. But man you’ll feel good for those 2 weeks.
10) I Don’t Have A 10th
My list ends at 9 things. And to be honest, I think it’s a pretty good list. If you follow it you’ll lose weight, get fit, save money, look fancy, feel more confident, get smarter, save the planet, feel more sophisticated, retire early, and overall have a better…2 months until March Madness starts and you are back to drinking every day, gambling away the money you’ve saved, surviving on Starbucks and pizza, wearing hoodies, pawning your art, breaking your scale, and all the while, still not reading. So happy new year, have a great January and February!