They tempt us, they goad us. They are spiteful, they are beneficent and as they smile ever so sweetly at our ambition and vanity, they are often quite irresistible.
Come the new year, come the resolutions.
The list is familiar, often rolled over from the previous year – lose weight, cut drinking, quit smoking, read a book every week, save money, get out of debt, be a better person.
Nothing wrong with any of this. We all want to liberate potential and make this our breakthrough year.
My stumbling blocks have always been overreaching myself – then becoming discouraged – and timing.
The first should be easy to overcome. Instead of saying airily I want to be healthier, run a marathon or learn German, I should scale ambition down to tiny steps and not make the end of the year a deadline. Or so the experts say.
Timing, however, is more problematic since the onset of the new year often finds me – and I suspect many others – at a low ebb.
Think about it, if you can summon the energy. The holidays are over and so too the guilt-free excess. We are groggy from a surfeit of turkey, liquor and sometimes company we would not normally choose. All that remains is one helluva mess – wrapping paper, boxes of half-eaten chocolates and a gaping hole in bank balances.
Oh yes, we are also back at work.
So while the new year stares at us inscrutably and with a suggestion of hope, we tend to stare back bleary-eyed and bluesy. It’s the worst time to be resolute, something confirmed by a poll of colleagues.
As I loitered in doorways and asked “Do you make New Year resolutions?”, the collective reply was “no.”
Rather polite, really.
Had someone said “Zip it, zipperhead, I’m not in the mood” it would have been understandable.
Of course, without the words ‘New Year,’ then the responses may have been different, something like: “Doesn’t everyone make resolutions?”
The point is New Year resolutions too often set us up for failure.
The failures are as predictable as the excuses. While we might begin with good intentions, the dead hand of routine – the need to pay bills and replenish resources – squishes them, sometimes aided by an unexpected event or crisis.
Come February or March we are faltering. A fresh start line may be drawn at Easter or a birthday, or perhaps at spring when everyone is feeling hopeful and ideas appear more plausible, but the game is looking increasingly desperate.
Finally, of course, there’s next year. What harm in rolling the New Year resolution over?
It’s a bit like revising for exams. List making becomes an end in itself: 10 a.m.-11 a.m., read French; 11-12, Shakespeare; 12-1, lunch; 1-2, relax.
With the list prepared, it’s time for reward, coffee and a chocolate chip cookie. Then we are entitled to a snooze. Just a little one, no more than an hour. After that, lunch, for list makers must be nourished as much as armies. Soon a spot of tea is in order, then a chat with a friend about intentions. Finally we cross out today’s date at the top and replace it with tomorrow’s.
So that’s it, I’m done with New Year resolutions. But I’ll still stick to the rewards.
Talking of which, it’s time for a coffee break.
Think I’ll also have some leftover Christmas chocolates.
