ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 1, 1996 TAG: 9601020138
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: HOLIDAY
COLUMN: Monty S. Leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
LET'S TALK about those New Year's resolutions of yours.
They're the same as last year's, aren't they?
They've been the same now for a number of years, haven't they?
They aren't doing you much good, are they?
Let's be generous. Let's assume that you've only been working on your resolutions for - say - the past three years. (You and I both know it's more like 20.)
But, let's be generous, and assume that one of your resolutions isn't ``lose weight.'' Let's assume that you're really perfectly happy with your weight, and that you've been so for - let's be generous - the last 20 years.
(Should we, at this point, include among our New Year's resolutions, ``Lie no more"?)
Continuing with the generosity of this season, let's say that another of your resolutions isn't ``get more exercise.''
Now, having assumed this, we can say - in all honesty! - that we don't have the first clue about each other's New Year's resolutions, do we? What mystery! What in the world could they be? Matters of personal preference? Matters of privacy? Matters, perhaps, of delicacy?
Matters, certainly, best left unspoken, since resolutions, so obviously, are made only to be broken.
However, in the spirit of the season, I will now confess one of mine. ``Read more.'' Again, this year. Modified only slightly to ``read more wisely.''
``I read quite enough already, thank you,'' said my brother, when we discussed this matter back before Christmas. (At the time, by the way, our next-most recent topic of conversation had been this column. Which I write. Which he doesn't read.)
``So, what else then?'' I wanted to know.
He didn't say.
(He wouldn't say? I don't know. I didn't press the issue.)
A few, however, that might be high on anyone's list:
Watch less TV.
Get those five helpings of fruits and vegetables every day.
Stop using credit cards.
Relax.
Simplify! Simplify! (This, by the way, is a time-honored resolution, having first been uttered by Henry David Thoreau around 1854. ``Our life is frittered away by detail,'' he wrote in "Walden." ``Simplify, simplify.'' Of course, at the time, he'd simplified his life primarily by living off the generosity of his friends.)
Save.
Be kind.
Take naps. (I don't have to resolve to take more naps. I take quite enough already, thank you.)
So, what's the point of resolutions, anyway?
``Fresh starts.'' That's a theory that I've heard. ``They give us each a fresh start on the year.''
But what's the point of another fresh start that's the same fresh start that's failed every year for the past three? (Or the past 20, for that matter?)
So, let's all resolve, this year, to make no resolutions.
OK?
OK.
Except, of course, for losing weight and getting more exercise. Those ones we haven't made already, anyway.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 linesby CNB