OK so how many New Year resolutions do you have left intact? No, me neither, but then these days I never make any, or at least I haven’t done since I was a little lad… and that’s a long time ago. I can never see the sense of them; we all know we’re going to break them, sometimes before even January 2nd.
I Googled the subject – and this is what came up: Surprisingly, 75 per cent of resolutions will be continued through the entire first week of January, but only 46 per cent make it past six months. Apparently 39 per cent of people in their 20s will keep to their pledge for the whole year, while only 14 per cent of people over 50 will manage to hang on to theirs.
My mother used to make one resolution every new year… quite a clever one actually. She used to resolve to try (note the word try) to try to be a better person. Great! Because if she did screw up… as indeed she invariably did, she would say: “I know, but I did just say I’d try… to be a better person. So I failed, hey!”
I’ve written before about my maiden aunt Grace. (It’s OK, she never reads this column. It’s far too outré for her) Well, Aunty Grace never ever makes new year resolutions. She regards such stuff as both sinful and “not serious”. As a kid I did once ask her if she was going to make any NYRs, only to be met with a sanctimonious gasp and the order never to mention such ungodly rubbish again. Yes I know it appears to most of us as a harmless piece of nonsense, but the old girl apparently sees it as akin to practising the dark arts, black magic and devil worship. Don’t ask me why.
The favourite January pledges are I suppose, to give up smoking and/or booze, to join a gym, to donate more to charity, and so on
One of the more bizarre new year resolutions I have personally come across was one made by a good friend a few years back. Dear old Charlie announced, over lunch at our place on January 1: “Yus I ’ave made a new year’s thingy. It is, from now on, to (expletive deleted) well stop (expletive deleted) swearing this year.” I need hardly add that he fell at the first fence.
In a similar vein, I have another very good friend (Yes I do have more than one) with – what I believe are called – anger management problems. A couple of years back, Karmenu and I were enjoying a beer on New Year’s Day when he announced that from now on… he was going to resolve to stop hitting people, when he played football. A big deal, since my friend Karmenu had been sent off more times than Wayne Rooney.
However, his pacifism lasted about 36 hours until midway through a derby game, when a member of the opposition, well aware of Karmenu’s short fuse, chanced to call him a fat poof (He was actually neither overweight nor homosexual), so Karmenu broke both his resolution and his opponent’s jaw with one strategically aimed uppercut.
During his inevitable suspension he told me, without even a smidgen of irony: “Right, that’s it… no more Mr Nice Guy.” And true to his word he was back to his old pugilistic ways. Which obviously meant he spent more time watching from the stands than he did on the pitch. So bang went yet another “heartfelt” NYR.
The favourite January pledges are, I suppose, to give up smoking and/or booze, to join a gym, to donate more to charity, and so on… which brings me back, by default, to Aunty Grace. Since the dear lady has never smoked or drank alcohol (The devil’s poison), the only exercise she would ever contemplate would be getting up and down off her knees in church, and claims to give a higher proportion of her money to charity than Bill Gates, what does she need with new year’s resolutions… so she’s perfect (at least in her eyes) already.
My NYRs? Naar, like I say, I didn’t bother last year, or the year before. No, I’m not Aunty Grace perfect… perish the thought. No, what I say is: why beat yourself up over a pledge you know damn well will go out of the window come sundown.