Sod the resolutions

If I were a gentleman in the Victorian era, I would at this very moment be pacing the drawing room with my hands behind my back, pausing every now and then to rest my hand on the upright piano, puff on my pipe, sip my whisky, and then muttering to my butler: “Sorting out thoughts, Jeeves, indeed.”

The three of us wished for health, happiness and a house- Kristina Chetcuti

As it happens, I was born in the wrong era (not to say the wrong gender). I have no piano, no pipe, no drawing room and alas, no butler. But here I am nonetheless, caught in a bout of frantic apprehensive thinking.

It’s the new year. Every year it brings with it a wave of nauseous panic: what have I achieved in these past 12 months? How much did I fail? (Wail! Wail!) This is followed by a fraught look ahead and the rabid urge to sort out all the wrongs, immediately.

Why do I do this, I do not know. I hate resolutions. On the basis of long previous experiences, I know I am unable to keep them. Remember last year when I wrote I’d be heading to the gym twice a week for spinning sessions? That lasted all of, um, three minutes. The only spinning I do now is the post-too-much-wine kind.

Yoga, meditation, walking in the fresh air, getting more sleep, not dressing in five minutes, being on time, employing a butler, finding a tall boyfriend, fishing, dancing, not watching Xarabank: all these have been failed resolutions. And this is the edited list, so go ahead, comfort yourself.

In this context I declared to two of my close friends that this was going to be a no-resolutions year. They harrumphed in agreement. Then, the cheery one said: “Sod the resolutions, why don’t we just make wishes for 2012? Let’s pretend we’re gonna rub a lamp and a genie will give us three wishes.”

As you can imagine we are suckers for these kind of, ahem, creative games, and promptly proceeded to do a round each. But. We’re boring. The three of us wished for health, happiness and a house. At least the details of the house were different.

The cheery one wanted a house with a garden, a dog and a kid. The city boy wanted a house by the edge of the sea so he could spend whole days fishing and I wanted a house with two dogs, four kids, a field and a pier with a boat tied to it.

“I can’t believe how introspective we are,” said city boy with mock-shock, “Is none of us going to wish for world peace?” We twisted our faces to make appropriate guilt-induced wrinkles, but none of us was willing to give up a wish for the outside world. “This is terrible of us,” I said, “Let’s just pretend the genie’ll give us an extra bonus wish for Malta.”

And so my cheery friend wished for better roads and more courtesy (followed by a five-minute rant about driving rudeness); I wished for country leaders with more gravitas, more balls and more brains (cue long speech on ‘where have all the statesmen gone?’); and city boy said simply: “I wish Malta would find oil.” We all cheered and voted that as the best wish ever.

We toasted and parted ways but I kept mulling over the resolutions issue until finally I found peace in a website aptly called resolution-revolution.org.uk.

This is a new project piloted by the British Humanist Association. It wants to recast the tired old New Year resolutions – and their negative nuances – as a pledge to do something positive for others. Some of the suggestions for resolutions are simple: clean the bathroom; take a relative out to visit a museum or gallery; plant bulbs in a pot for the spring. Easy peasy to stick to, and with optimum results, because apparently it’s all based on Aristotle’s theory of what makes a good life: helping other people is more likely to make you happy – both at the time and in subsequent days – than indulging in short-term pleasures.

According to the BHA, this is supported by scientific evidence that shows that when we are kind to others our bodies release the hormone oxytocin which reduces blood pressure and slows down the ageing process helping us stay healthy for longer. The only hitch is that we don’t have much time to enjoy the fruit of these altruistic resolutions. For let us not forget the naysayers: December 21, of this year is our very last day on this earth.

So, please do have a happy New Year.

Post Scriptum: This column is the result of endless conversations with friends over cups of tea, long-winded lunches and boozey evenings. Here’s to another year of that.

krischetcuti@gmail.com