Another year is now firmly upon us. Granted, it will take me at least another six weeks before I start denoting the date with a ‘14’ instead of a ‘13’, but I’ll eventually get used to it. It’s a strange habit, but as the old calendar is replaced by the new, people make rash declarations about the year ahead that range from the well meaning to the hopelessly misguided. It’s easy to dismiss them as the inevitable result of a celebration where sobriety is generally the first casualty. But in the spirit of turning over a new leaf, then turning it over again because I preferred it the way it was, I have decided to make some new year’s resolutions of my own.
Another year is now firmly upon us. Granted, it will take me at least another six weeks before I start denoting the date with a ‘14’ instead of a ‘13’, but I’ll eventually get used to it. It’s a strange habit, but as the old calendar is replaced by the new, people make rash declarations about the year ahead that range from the well meaning to the hopelessly misguided. It’s easy to dismiss them as the inevitable result of a celebration where sobriety is generally the first casualty. But in the spirit of turning over a new leaf, then turning it over again because I preferred it the way it was, I have decided to make some new year’s resolutions of my own.
But before I make a series of hasty promises to myself that I’m unlikely to keep, it’s worth asking the big question: what does 2014 actually mean? In a strict sense, it means that the earth has rotated around the sun more than two thousand times since the Gregorian calendar first recorded time as ‘Anno Domini’, symbolized as ‘AD’. The term ‘Anno Domini’ does not – as some mistakenly believe – stand for ‘after death’. Roughly translated from Latin, it actually means ‘I feel like Chicken tonight’. It must be said that two thousand odd trips around the sun is something of an achievement, to say nothing of the kind of frequent flyer points our planet must have accumulated. But after that many trips around the block, our planet knows well enough that not all years are the same.
Some arrive with a reputation. For instance, the year ‘2012’ was somewhat cruelled by claims that the world would come to a screeching, shuddering halt. The source of this woefully inaccurate tip was said to be the ancient Mayans whose calendar only went up to the year 2012. To capitalize on the threat of impending doom, Hollywood produced a movie, creatively entitled ‘2012’ about the end of the world. It was a film so bad that, as an alternative to watching the movie, the end of the world seemed pretty appealing. To date, no one has threatened to make a movie about 2014 AD. This, it must be said, must be regarded as a positive sign.
So what should my resolution be? For starters, I think it’s worth avoiding anything unrealistic, even if that means letting go of some of my long-held ambitions. For that reason, it’s time to surrender the dream of ever getting to sing ‘All My Loving’ as a fully-fledged member of the Johnny Young Talent Team (as per it’s original incarnation and not the resuscitated ‘Glee-light’ monstrosity). My quest to invent an eight-day week, resulting in a permanent three-day weekend will now be left to wither on the vine. ‘Sunday’ will now never be followed by ‘Funday’. The less said about my mission to translate the works of Shakespeare into Klingon, the better. (‘To be or not to be’ is all well and good for conventional types, but “taH pagh taHbe’” has a real ring to it. I’m almost certain that the Bard would have been a Star Trek fan.) So what should I resolve?
Conventional resolutions take the form of eating better, losing weight and spending time with family. I have nothing against any of those things, but they’re hardly very imaginative. In fact, all kinds of claims of self-improvement are made when staring down the barrel of a new year. Finances, diet and kindness and common subjects also. I’m torn. On the one hand, I want to avoid being predictable and for my objectives to have a little glamour about them. But I’m desperate to avoid being so unrealistic as to be utterly delusional. There’s no point waiting – the time has come to declare my hand.
So here’s my resolution for the New Year: I will not become embroiled in an armed skirmish in the Baltic states. Just to be clear, that’s without exception and even if provoked. I also declare that I will not attempt to land a manned space mission on the planet Mars without first seeking permission from the intergalactic overlords that currently rule the red planet with a green but ultimately iron-like fist. If that doesn’t sound like enough, then finally there’s this: I sincerely promise to stop writing weekly letters to Johnny Young to plead my case for a mature age entry scheme to his Talent School. This will come as a relief not only to Johnny but to my wife also who, I think, is tiring from my insistence that I sew sequins on all my clothes.
I’m quietly confident that I’ll fulfill my resolutions. Truth be told, I very much doubt that it will even be a close run thing. I suppose it’s easy enough to ridicule those who go out of their way to make a new year’s resolution, but there’s something nice about it. In fact, it’s kind of inspiring. The declaration that, in future, we will do things a little better says much about the inherently optimistic nature of human beings.
We want to improve because we always think we can. The heralding of a new year is as much about farewelling the old and, for me, I won’t miss 2013 much. That’s not because I was drawn into a Balkan conflict or that I resent not getting a reply from Johnny Young. It’s more that I always think I can do better. Best wishes for 2014.