New Year resolutions face assault of old habits

IF Christmas is the time of excess, can the New Year’s Resolution be far behind?

Whisper it softly folks, it's that time of year again the period when normally sane adults make outrageous promises about their own future conduct as if they were politicians in the middle of a general election campaign.

It's a natural reaction given that most of us have just eaten our own weight in turkey and Christmas pudding and spent money as if the euro was going to be replaced by a new currency tomorrow.

Overfed over the past fortnight on a diet of nostalgia for the year that was 2002, we can't resist the temptation to alter course and look forward to all the promises offered by 2003.

Tradition has appointed January 1 as the perfect time for a fresh start and an ideal mechanism to finally change one's bad habits.

Some people take their cue from the Biblical message (via a Dublin street angel) of giving up their "auld sins" by absolving themselves from one or more of the seven deadly kinds of transgression in the coming year.

Many others opt for the NYR "old reliables" such as giving up smoking or taking up exercise, with the more optimistic vowing to do both.

The truly zealous will broadcast their good intentions to any audience, carefully ignoring the fact that most resolutions have been breached or abandoned by January 6.

For those exasperated by the whole NYR process, blame should be attached to the Babylonians. They were the first known race to celebrate New Year's Day over 4,000 years ago when the most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment.

Thankfully, combine harvesters have become more plentiful in Ireland 2003, although it would be nice for Cooley Peninsula farmers to resolve to return headage payments for non-existent sheep.

The ancient Babylonians also believed that what a person did on the first day of the New Year had an effect throughout the following 12 months.

However, the Babylonians' New Year was in March, thereby offering modern folk who break their resolutions an opportunity to make another fresh start later in the year.

Even then, they will have a further chance to make amends during Lent.

But in truth, it should never come to that. After all, New Year's Resolutions like pets aren't just for Christmas.