We’re more than a week into 2020 which means it’s safe to say that everyone has successfully failed at their New Year’s resolutions. It also means that people are either desperately looking for ways to stick with their resolutions, or looking for completely new ones that might be a tad more attainable - that’s where the cast of Friends comes in.
The hit NBC sitcom focused around six friends living in Manhattan came up with quite a few quirky attributes for their main characters and occasionally had an episode where one, or all, of the six friends, realized they had to change and (surprise, surprise) made a resolution to change it. That being said, here are 10 potential New Year’s resolutions inspired by the Central Perk Six.
Don’t talk about work so much
This resolution stems from one of the longest-running jokes of the entire series, which is that nobody wants to hear about your boring work stories - nobody. Ross was the main culprit of trying to rope his friends into listening to every possible anecdote about fossils or dinosaurs, and his friends made it clear on every occasion that the stories did nothing more than put them to sleep.
However, Ross wasn’t the only one since nobody even knew what Chandler’s job was for the first nine seasons, but at least Chandler knew enough not to talk about it. Take a hint from Ross - unless somebody works in the same field as you, they do not care about your work. Period.
Get a new/better job
While we’re talking about work, why not make a resolution for yourself to find a career that you actually like! Now, take this one with a grain of salt because if you already like your job than we’re not saying you should just quit and seek employment elsewhere.
But, what we are saying is that far too many people have jobs where they’re unhappy and unappreciated and finding a better working environment might not be the worst thing in the world. Just don’t talk about the new job once you’ve got it.
Stop yelling so much
That’s right, Monica, we’re looking at you for this one. Everybody has occasional problems with getting a little excited or angry or any other emotion that causes them to raise their voice above an indoor level, which is exactly why it’d be a great resolution to try and tone it down a bit.
While Monica is the main source of yelling in Friends (her catchphrase of “I know!” comes to mind) the other five friends aren’t exactly prone to keeping their voices down either (especially when Joey doesn’t want to share food). Again, if you’re already a calm person than don’t read into this one too much, but we think everybody could just take it down a couple of notches.
Learn to chug a gallon of milk in 10 seconds
This New Year’s resolution comes straight from Joey Tribbiani’s refrigerator as the greatest feat to ever be attained by a fictional character, and we should all aspire to reach the same level of greatness.
The episode of Friends entitled, “The One With All The Resolutions,” had the gang each pick a New Year’s resolution for themselves (we’re getting to those) and Joey decided that he wanted to be able to do one of the things on his resume. As it turned out, he already could, claiming he could chug a gallon of milk in under 10 seconds and then definitively proving it to Phoebe. (Important footnote: don’t actually try this, you’ll die).
Do a new thing every day
The idea of doing a new thing every single day is actually a pretty daunting resolution (that’s 365 new things to come up with) so Ross was definitely stretching when he came up with this one.
Also, if one of the new things you want to try is wearing leather pants, then that’s your choice - but based on Ross’ outcome we wouldn’t recommend it. Despite Ross’ poor planning and execution, the concept of his resolution was sound if a person were to dial it back to doing a new thing every few days or even a week. But, again, we’d skip the leather pants (as everyone should).
Stop gossiping
Rachel may have an issue with gossiping, but that doesn’t negate the fact that this is something that every person needs to stop doing, making it an amazing resolution. Now, it’s easier said than done, especially since gossip is just an unfortunate part of society and has become even more prone with social media, but it’s still a worthy goal to try and obtain because gossiping is an ugly quality, especially for people such as Rachel who thrive on it.
We get it, to learn information about people a little bit of gossip has to go back-and-forth - just don’t make a point of spreading information that isn’t yours to spread.
Stop making fun of your friends
This one’s a little bit tougher but still doable. Chandler is known throughout the series as the jokester, often resulting in him making unsatisfying or unwarranted jokes about his friends. In the episode with all the resolutions, his friends finally call him out on his joking ways and inform him that it’d behoove him to knock it off.
While Chandler might have failed at that task within days (as we all would), it’s still a solid resolution that everyone should try being a little bit nicer to their friends and the people they care about.
Learn to play the guitar (or any other instrument)
Be honest with yourself - how many times have you seen somebody playing a piano or strumming away on a guitar and felt incredibly envious of their musical gift? If the answer is “every freaking time” then perhaps you should follow in Joey’s footsteps and take up learning an instrument as your new year’s resolution.
Now, bear in mind, mastering an instrument takes well over a year so this resolution is one that people will have to really commit too, but as long as you have a teacher as incredible as Phoebe then it should be no problem. Bear Claw. Turkey Leg. Old Lady.
Take more pictures
If your phone is running out of storage from the number of pointless photos that you take, then for the love of God, please don’t make this your resolution (and delete some pictures, you hoarder). However, if you’re the type of person who enjoys living-in-the-moment a little too much and finds themselves looking back on their life and not remembering a ton of it, then learning how to take pictures of the important things might just be the resolution for you.
Monica didn’t exactly keep up with it since we never saw her with a camera again, but maybe she picked it back up when smartphones came out.
Pilot a jet (or do something that scares you)
Phoebe went a little over-the-top when it came to her resolution, but Phoebe does everything over-the-top so we just had to adjust this one for size. According to the most quirky member of the Central Perk Six, she wanted to pilot a jet for her resolution, and as impressive as that is, finding somebody who could make that happen would be a pretty difficult endeavor.
So, maybe a better resolution would be to do something that scares you, but would also bring joy to your life if you finally accomplished it (piloting a jet might qualify, but we’re willing to bet we’d feel a heck of a lot more scared than accomplished).
