New Year Resolutions – How to create an unbreakable list

We’re only a few days into the New Year and already between 87 and 92 per cent of people have broken every single one of their New Year’s Resolutions.

This is according to official peer-reviewed research data from DOCMUS, the highly-respected, incontestably accurate and 100 per cent reliable Department Of Completely Made Up Statistics.

These findings come as no surprise.

As each New Year approaches, we all become seized by the exhilarating prospect of using the occasion as an opportunity to commit to some form of personal renewal.

Self-improvement has long been the predominant theme as people vow to make things better, both for themselves and – time permitting – for those around them.

Some even go further, promising to cease being so self-centred to instead focus all their efforts on helping the community, doing volunteer work and offering unsolicited advice to others about how they can be better people. This typically occurs when cornered at parties with no viable means of escape.

To those who manage to stick to their New Year’s Resolutions and create better versions of themselves, congratulations.

We admire you, we praise you, we sanctify you and, most of all, we despise you with every fibre of our being. That comes from the heart.

For most of us, New Year’s Resolutions are tough to stick by, chiefly because the euphoric sense of optimism that produces them is promptly doused by the firehose of reality.

As life wears on and the pile of abandoned New Year’s Resolutions grows ever higher, you are faced with a choice.

You can take The High Road, knuckle down and devote yourself to fulfilling your promises, thus enriching your life and making the world a better place.

Or you can take The Low Road and compile a list of New Year’s Resolutions you know you’ll have no problem keeping.

Admittedly, taking The Low Road might not say much that’s flattering about your moral character, but at least it requires less effort.

Also, The High Road can be perilous, resulting in altitude sickness and nosebleeds. Beware, too, that The High Road is not a sealed carriageway. This can lead to punctures and pock marks on your duco.

To guide you on the way to happiness, here is a sample list of easy-to-honour New Year’s Resolutions that are future-proof, fool-proof and, in the event of heavy rain, water-proof.

You hereby vow to:

* Never promise anything when asked to do something. Always use a phrase that gives you an exit strategy such as “that shouldn’t be a problem” or “I think I can do that” or “that’s perfectly fine as far as I know” or some similar combination of weasel words;

* Continue spending hours and hours scrolling even though there are 1001 better ways to use your time;

* Gain weight;

* Take out an expensive gym membership and never turn up;

* Subscribe to at least three streaming services that you never watch;

* Keep all that rusting, dust-covered clutter in the back of the shed exactly where it is, including all the expensive exercise equipment;

* Continue promising to call old acquaintances you run into on the street, then never do;

* Keep secretly eating fast food you told everyone you’d sworn off;

* Wait until it actually starts raining before bringing in the washing from the clothes line;

* Precisely time your daily commute so that you always arrive at the station two seconds before the bus/train/tram departs;

* Promise yourself you’ll pay for the chocolate you take from the supermarket shelf and scoff down without anyone noticing and then “forget” to do so;

* Poke your tongue at kids who stare at you on the bus;

* Keep looking for a worthy charity to donate a meaningful amount to, and never follow through;

* Continue ordering home delivery from places that are literally five minutes away;

* Always take the phone to bed;

* Ignore all friendship requests on Facebook.

Following these leads shall guarantee that your behavioural patterns can continue unhindered, thus ensuring your New Year will be untroubled by having anything new in it.

Ah, that Low Road. Where would we be without it?