Sunday Newscape Magazine

If you're like most people, at some point in December (probably when you were under the influence of some seriously spiked eggnog), you began making your New Year's resolutions. And why did you make these resolutions? Because you want to be a better person. You want to be like that perfect person you know who has a perfect body, the perfect job, a perfectly clean house and perfectly behaved children. Even that person's dog is one of those perfect canines usually owned only by celebrities.

In a perfect world, you would have every right to kill this nauseating person with a perfectly good crowbar.  But, alas, we live in an imperfect world in which that perfect person goes on living right next door to you and goes right on sneering at all your fairly obvious imperfections. So, at the dawn of this new year, you are once again determined to make some changes in your life.

Sadly, if you're like most people, your resolutions will have melted into dirty, watery sludge before the New Year's baby has even had time to soil its diaper. Researchers tell us that motivation -- and its kissin’ cousin, self-control -- are the keys to sticking to all those well-intentioned resolutions. If you really want to lose weight or get organized or win the lottery, they say, you will. I’m not sure how much researchers actually know, but they have also told me privately that your personal level of motivation and self-control is smack dab in the category officially known as A Snowball's Chance in the Proverbial Hot Place. These researchers did not want to tell you this to your face because they are afraid you will sic your imperfect dog on them. Thus, they enlisted me to break it to you gently.

But I'm here to tell you that it is not your fault. The reason you have failed every year to live up to your resolutions is not because you have the backbone of a jellyfish and the self-control of Homer (or OJ) Simpson. It is because the celebration of a new year has been hijacked, taken from its rightful place in the spring and plopped down in a cold calendar that can't truly appreciate it. We’re doing this at the wrong time, folks.

Why on earth do we start a new year in the dead of winter, just after we've spent weeks storing up fat during the holidays? We should act like many of our animal brethren and begin a long period of hibernation in January. Instead, we think it’s time to hit the gym and clean the house. We certainly are a strange species.

As you can see, my friend, you are merely a victim of poor timing. I suggest you tear up your resolutions and go back to bed. You can try following your New Year’s list in the spring -- that season of rebirth when everything (including hope) is in bloom. Perhaps then, you’ll have a better chance at succeeding. And perhaps pigs will soon start flying. It could happen

© Jackie Papandrew 2008, All Rights Reserved