The New Year is a time for resolutions. Mentally, at least, most of us could compile formidable lists of 'dos' and 'don'ts'. The same old favourites recur year in year out with monotonous regularity. We resolve to get up earlier each morning, eat less, find more time to play with the children, do a thousand and one jobs about the house, be nice to people we don't like, drive carefully, and take the dog for a walk every day. Past experience has taught us that certain accomplishments are beyond attainment. If we remain inveterate smokers, it is only because we have so often experienced the frustration that results from failure. Most of us fail in our efforts at self - improvement because our schemes are too ambitious and we never have time to carry them out. We also make the fundamental error of announcing our resolutions to everybody so that we look even more foolish when we slip back into our bad old ways. Aware of these pitfalls, this year I attempted to keep my resolutions to myself. I limited myself to two modest ambitions: to do physical exercises every morning and to read more of an evening. An all - night party on New Year's Eve provided me with a good excuse for not carrying out either of these new resolutions on the first day of the New Year, but on the second, I applied myself assiduously to the task.
The daily exercises lasted only eleven minutes and I proposed to do them early in the morning before anyone had got up. The self - discipline required to drag myself out of bed eleven minutes earlier than usual was considerable. Nevertheless, I managed to creep down into the living - room for two days before anyone found me out. After jumping about on the carpet and twisting the human frame into uncomfortable positions, I sat down at the breakfast table in an exhausted state. It was this that betrayed me. My wife was sitting opposite me, looking rather glum.
'You don't look very well,' she said. 'Is something wrong?'
'I've been doing my exercises,' I said.
'What exercises?' she asked in surprise.
'Jumping about on the carpet and twisting the human frame into uncomfortable positions,' I replied.
'Good heavens!' she exclaimed. 'Why on earth are you doing that?'
'Well, I've made a resolution to do physical exercises every morning,' I explained.
'But you don't look as if you've been doing physical exercises,' she said.
'I haven't finished yet,' I said. 'I've only been doing them for two days.'
'You're making a fool of yourself,' she said. 'You can't expect to improve your physical condition in two days. You need at least a couple of weeks.'
'I know,' I said. 'But I'm determined to carry out my resolution.'
'I'm sure you are,' she said. 'But you're still making a fool of yourself.'
I decided to give up the exercises, because it was clear that my wife was right. I had been making a fool of myself. It was not so much my appearance that betrayed me as my lack of energy. I realized that if I continued to do the exercises, I would be making a fool of myself even more. So I abandoned the idea of physical exercises and concentrated on my second resolution: reading more of an evening. This was easier said than done, because I soon discovered that I had not got the necessary books. I had been thinking about buying some new books for a long time, but I had always postponed the purchase. Now that I had made a resolution to read more, I needed to buy some books. I went to the local bookstore, but I could not find any books that I really wanted to buy. I was disappointed, but I did not give up. I went to another bookstore, and this time I found some books that I liked. I bought them and took them home. I was pleased with my purchase, but I knew that I still had a long way to go before I could say that I had carried out my resolution. I needed to find time to read the books, and I needed to make sure that I did not slip back into my bad old ways of not reading enough.