It’s 2013, and approximately everyone in the world will be taking their first step toward establishing new habits, new career moves, or new lifestyle choices at some point today. Moving toward a new life.

By tomorrow, most people will have already failed to keep up with their new ambitions.

We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to imbue milestones with meaning. Birthdays are important. Your wedding should be the best day of your life. College needs to be a time of rampant experimentation before adult life, which should be filled with responsibility and sacrifice.

I call shenanigans on this practice. I say the best time to make a change, or to have an important moment, or to have the best day of your life, or to experiment like someone who’s in their prime and living in a consequence-free environment, is whenever it feels right. I say if you want to establish new habits or try out a new way of living, you should do it January 12. Or March 3. Or November 8. Or whenever the hell.

Because the dates don’t matter. Dates are measuring devices that help us keep track of time. That doesn’t mean they can accurately measure when we’re prepared to take a new, important step in our lives.

For the purposes of making resolutions, think of every day as New Year’s day. Every moment is a opportunity to take or not. Live your life and marvel at how quickly you’re able to instigate positive personal change, and how well that change sticks.

Update: February 26, 2017

Exactly. You decide what meaning a particular day has, and even if it’s not the dawn of a new year, you can make a day important by deciding that today, this day, is when you make a big, important, memorable change in your life.