In not what you’d really call a representative sample, I surveyed a couple of people I know about what they thought was the most common New Year’s resolution.
Almost 100% said, “To quit smoking!” with authority – as though they’d gone to the trouble I had to actually ask the population.
These days smokers are right up there with paedophiles and Crocs-wearers on the unsavoury list. In movies when someone cracks up a cancer-stick you just know he’s the one who’s going to betray the hero at the end. And when asking for a light you so often get a smug “Oh no, I don’t smoke” response, as though these people donate hours of their time each week to slopping lobster bisque into bowls in a soup kitchen.
When confronted about their discrimination against puffers, these Nazis will sincerely tell you, “Some of my best friends are smokers.”
I kind of gave up on resolving to change something about myself at the beginning of each year; mainly because I was always so pissed when I made the commitment I forgot about it when I woke up on the 2nd of Jan.
I think instead of promising to stop something – like smoking or aiming for pigeons with your car – it’s a better idea pledging to start doing something that will be for the betterment of mankind, the environment, or at least your self-esteem.
It doesn’t even have to be that serious. Maybe something small that will make you a less boring person or expand your horizons – listening to new music, reading more expansively, trying on women’s clothing for a change.
Or you could adopt the Fight Club theory that “self-improvement is masturbation; now self-destruction… well, that might just be the answer we need” and vow to let yourself hit rock-bottom so you can build yourself up into the person you want to be.
Either way, we shouldn’t let society, the surgeon general, or our mothers tell us what we should change in 2011; we should choose something that we want to do and do that instead.
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