It's the New Year, that magical time when we draw an arbitrary marker between one calendar date and the next with the understanding that after January 1st we'll be better people than the year before.
It's one thing to promise you'll drink less and be smarter with money as you hand over fistfuls of cash at a quarter to fireworks, another thing entirely to summon the willpower not to Ubereats a bucket of KFC and a hospice nurse to administer it at 3pm on New Year's Day.
In light of that, as a man of the world, I've put together some tips on how to make resolutions you won't feel bad for abandoning as you go back to work and remember that you day-drink and stress eat for a reason.
Make it all about you
Let's face it, we only make resolutions to ruin someone else's day. The whole point of making a spectacular resolution to eat better (as opposed to just quietly changing your diet) is the fact that for a few precious weeks at the start of the year you have carte blanche to inflict it on everyone in your life. Spouses, children, co-workers: what's the point of being a better person if you're not making them feel worse? Yes, your lunch is a can of tuna and a rice cracker, but you also have tacit permission to sit opposite David from sales in the break room and make awkward eye contact until he is obliged to compliment you on your flagellant diet.
Make it all about them
If you unwillingly rope someone else into your resolution, the blame is already shared when your willpower buckles. Instead of losing weight, loudly announce, "My resolution is for my girlfriend and I to get more exercise!" at every opportunity. Vow to be a better parent and, and to "Spend more time with the kids," then resent your children fiercely when they already have plans.
This way, when resolutions fail, responsibility can be denied, because who really knows whose fault it is? Did you know that in a firing squad, only some of the soldiers' guns are loaded so nobody has to feel guilty for firing the fatal shot? Now that's making a resolution.
Make it all about guilt
Pretty much every religion is built on feeling terrible about not living up to an impossible standard, and fortunately, so too are the secular worlds of romance and modern industry. The more people you harangue with your goal, the more people are there to give you specific and highly motivating shit when you start to fail.
"Oh!" says David from Sales as you joylessly chew your canned fish. "How's the diet going for you?"
He's not being friendly; he is implying that your diet is not going well, that you are overweight, that you are a disappointment to your workplace and spouse and all your ancestors. Once you've internalised enough shame, you'll find it's a valuable resource that works as well in the boardroom as it does the bedroom.
Make it vague
Low hanging fruit is the best fruit. The more vague your resolution, the easier it is to stick to. I once had an employer whose resolution each year was "To be better." And he kept that resolution – every year he got better at becoming kind of racist and sexually inappropriate with his staff after two drinks.
Two words: Yo-ga.
The easiest resolution in the world – if someone asks you if you have a resolution - is tell them it's to "work on my practice."
Yoga is a group of physical, mental and spiritual disciplines which originated in ancient India, and which has been so thoroughly co-opted by insufferable white people that this could mean anything.
I've done classes in Sydney where the instructor, a steroid-munching Alpha-type, insisted that if we weren't maxing out our heart rate and burning carbs while achieving some kind of Nirvana we were wasting everyone's time. "Ten cobra poses!" She was yelling as I limped out. "Quick as you can! If you feel your knees breaking, use it!"
Another time, in Ubud, Indonesia, a wiry instructor in her 60s sporting a hessian sack just vaguely waved her hands in front of her genitals for two hours before announcing: "We have arrived, my fellow warriors of light. Namaste." I guarantee you, that woman was 100% satisfied with how her new year resolutions were working out for her.
The brutal truth
In certain cities, yoga has become so weirdly normalised that some schools may as well be flying gang colours. Pull out some Ashtanga bulls**t in a Hatha Vidyà part of town and you're likely to get jumped and kerb-jawed, or whatever the passive-aggressive juice-bar equivalent of that is.
Making yoga your resolution works even better when the person you're trying to impress doesn't practice yoga themselves. They've probably got an idea that it's a high-minded, arduous and virtuosic thing to be involved with, and that, in a nutshell, is what you want people to assume you're taking into the New Year, without having to put in any effort.
Happy New Year, my friends. And Namaste.
Made any realistic resolutions you intend to maybe stick to? Let us know in the comments below.
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