2013 - The Year to Stay True to Your Self

     How’s the diet going?  Did you ever lose those calories?  Start saving for that holiday?  Join the gym, new hobby, five-a-day? Of course by now your New Year’s resolutions are in full effect and you are beginning to see a whole new you with these revolutionary life changes.  Your once distant hopes and aspirations, the person you longed to be for all that time, are beginning to shine through right in front of your eyes like a beautiful – wait, what? What do you mean you never stuck to your vows?  Don’t tell me you were drunk at the time.  How could you let yourself down like that – future you is in tears!

     Seriously though, don’t worry. It’s fine – I don’t blame you.  You never really had faith in your empty promises and after all you really were drunk at the time – remember, in the small hours of New Year ’s Day?  Didn’t think so.  Unless of course you’re one of the mavericks attempting a “dry January": an entire month alcohol free.  I think you’re crazy, January is the month when booze is required most to get us through those exams, celebrate their end and provide solace when the results come out.

     By now it’s estimated that 88% of people who made New Year’s resolutions will have abandoned them, according to a survey by Channel 4.  But the discerning amongst us may have recognised the futility of making these resolutions and therefore decided sensibly (like me) that their only vow is not to actually make any. 

     Trying to make big changes takes energy – a lot of energy; a lot of mental energy and then inevitably: mental anguish when we fail. We set the bar so high it needs red aviation warning lights.  Then often it’s only a matter of days before it soars to the ground – landing right in top of our self-esteem. 

     But don’t reproach yourself into misery.  Penalising yourself for something that was, statistically and historically: doomed to failure, won’t do you any good.  Psychologists suggest that the tasks we set at New Year are far too great to be achieved and willpower is like an energy that must be accumulated over time then spent wisely.  Often people make multiple promises and willpower is dissipated quickly on just one task leaving us spent for the completion of any of our resolutions.

     This year I did think of some vague aspirations because it’s always good to set goals just keep us on track, give us something to work to.  They were standard and included: more exercise, reading more, finding a better balance between work and leisure and (the one that’s most likely to fail) economise.  They’re not my “resolutions”; I didn’t even waste time writing them down; and I don’t have that transitory outburst of determination we often get at New Year to make sweeping changes to our lives.  But I have made a simple commitment to endeavour to do what’s good for me – just like what we tend to do on a daily basis anyway.

     So I guess my undefined resolution is to maintain the rationale of everyday life… Ok that’s the most bizarre resolution I’ve ever heard; perhaps I’m better sticking with my original plan: not bother making any resolutions because they’re pointless – past me you are a genius!