Wiki Lurks

Pointless Resolutions

Trust me – this post will go right to the top of the search rankings. These lists are hot – everyone wants to use the change of year as impetus to change their miserable, excreable lives, but is it realistic? Depends what’s on your list.

1. Don’t make any new year’s resolutions. No really, if your life is worth improving, it’s worth improving on a dreary Wednesday in November. If its not worth improving, price up some sausage rolls for the funeral.
2. Lose weight. This is on everyone’s list. You could throw yourself into some mad diet consisting mainly of courgettes and soya milk, but really, I thought you wanted to improve life? Courgettes improved nobody’s life – I know someone who can attest to this at great length, but here’s an easy step forward – stop buying shit. No crisps in the cupboard, no crisp sandwiches in your gut.
3. Start a blog. I have read this on other lists, I’ve had it recommended to me, and lo – here I am. Of course it does nothing for any resolution to go to bed at a sensible time, but early days. It gives you something different to think about, and actually, digging your way out of that rut through organising your thoughts is no bad thing.
4. Get a better, higher paying job. If you want one. You might like the one you’ve got – it may give you plenty of time to sit on t’interweb reading rubbish like this. If, however, you dreamed of more – saving African children from malnourishment, finding a cure for cancer, starring in a hit movie – I have news for you. You will never be Angelina Jolie, ever. No matter how great a percentage of your diet is devoted to courgettes and oily fish. But you can become a slightly better paid office fly, with slightly better benefits than you have now. So do 1 thing more than you do already. If you talk about getting another job, but never check the vacancies, look online. If you look but never apply, read up on how to polish a turd and dig your CV out. Hell, have a liquid lunch to get up the courage and send it off – what’s the worst that can happen?
5. This one is great, and it’s not even nicked off another blog. It was my personal revelation. ELIMINATE THE WORD “SHOULD” FROM YOUR VOCABULARY. There are things you need to do, and there are things you want to do. If you need to do them, get on with it, stop whining, get them over with. Then there are things you want to do. Allow yourself time to do them. Everything else, well you’ve already identified that you don’t want or need to do it, so why do it?

So there you go, my list of how to improve your life. Of course, I could be any old snake-oil salesman. The proof of its efficaciousness is whether it works, so I will be following this list and reporting back.

That’s what this blog was nearly called. Why? Because I hate Pollyannas – those bloody cheerful types that say “Oh well, look on the bright side..” and blether something about making lemonade out of lemons. Ridiculous, as they are usually the types that make a career out of dodging fruit and veg. Fat and happy? Yeah right.  Lemons go in gin, and you drink gin when you’re pissed off. Everyone knows that – especially me. I’m not a Pollyanna, I’m a realist. Some call me a corrupt, cynical pessimist, but that’s because they are not realists, they are fools.

Nevertheless, life is what you make it, and you can’t escape from yourself, not alive. So skipping the motorway bridge alternative as messy and traumatic for Yorkie munchers, I have decided to investigate the possibility of changing my mental attitude. To understand that, you need to know a bit about me first, and what has driven me to this point. Long, naval-gazing posts about my childhood can wait. The nub of the matter is that for the last 6 months of 2010, I have been unemployed.

It was redundancy, from an industry that is moribund and unlikely to improve. I work in Strategy – therefore this outcome was not unexpected. In fact, it was eagerly anticipated. I travelled for a bit, came home and looked forward to a bit of quality leisure time… which is where it all started to go wrong. It’s not as easy as it looks, you know.