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Magazine
It's that time of the year
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Making a new year wish list is an art in itself. It isn't something you dash off ... . Starting a fortnightly column by ANIL DHARKAR.
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THE world is made up of two kinds of people: those who make new year resolutions and those who don't. The second kind always sneer at the first kind. The Resolutionists, they say, don't have the resolve to keep their resolutions. Making your new year wish list, they continue, and doing it year after year, is the ultimate triumph of hope over experience.
They are right and they are wrong. They are right, of course, because most of us Resolutionists will falter at the first hurdle. Suppose I say (luckily I don't have to) that this year I will give up smoking, how long do you think that packet of cigarettes kept around for the unexpected visitor, will remain unopened? A month? A week? A day? Ditto for the chocolate cake in the fridge. How long do you give it before you decide there won't be any unexpected visitors, and isn't it a shame to throw away such an expensive thing when there are so many people starving so you might as well eat it right away?
Self-denial is difficult, which is why there are so very few monks and nuns all over the world. In any case if God had wanted us not to indulge in the small pleasures of the flesh, he would have given us a stronger will power. Yet the same entity which designed our complex brain (so very powerful a computer that we use only a tenth of it, and that's if we are a genius), and which designed our heart pump to work continuously, day in, day out for a hundred years without a maintenance contract, couldn't It (He/ She) have built into our system an infallible and unbreachable will? The fact that this isn't so tells us, if only we would listen, that this apparent oversight from our Maker, is, in fact, part of the Grand Design. Or, if you will, the Human Condition.
So when you and I go to the fridge for a swig of water and return with chocolate on our face, it's because we are being what we were meant to be Human. Designed to fail. A trip here and a stumble there.
But the Human Condition requires us to try. Without trying, and failing, there wouldn't be the possibility of the occasional success. For every e = mc², there must have been any number of e = mc³.
Archimedes rushed out, dripping and clotheless, shouting, Eureka only once; the rest of his life, he kept his towel on. It's through these trials and errors that the world moves on, and moves a bit by bit forward and a bit by bit upward. So if we were all cynics and didn't even write down our new year resolutions, the world would stay where it was.
Having said that, we must recognise that making new year resolutions is an art in itself. It isn't just something you dash off. You have to try and find the middle path, depending of course on who you are. Bring peace to mankind is a great resolution if you are the Pope, but of not much use if you are not. Likewise, Eliminate terrorism is good for George Bush and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but a bit of a waste for you and me.
On the other side of the scale are resolutions like Clean up office drawer or Tidy wardrobe because they are too easy and are the kind of matter-of-fact things which shouldn't need to wait for a change of calendar. It's the difficult things that need to be on the list. Like giving up smoking. Or dessert. Or being nice to your spouse. Or spending Quantity Time with your kids. Or eating broccoli with salad.
To that add the really, truly formidable things: Your secret ambition. The Career, you always wanted to pursue. The hobby you wanted to take but never had time for. The novel you just knew you had in you, only if you had a spare moment or the knowledge of how to. Learning to use the computer. If by the end of the year you've succeeded in achieving one out of your 10 goals, you are doing average, With every additional success, you get away from the rest of us into the Super Achiever class.
If you've got 10 out of 10, you are probably the Pope. So should you be working to bring peace to mankind?
Anil Dharkar is a noted journalist, media critic and author.
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