Are New Year’s resolutions a waste of time?

A virtuous new leaf, or just a way to make January even worse...

COMe on, we all know it. It is a truth universally acknowledged ( in my house, anyway) that I can’t stick to anything, and therefore resolutions are like rules: made to be broken.

For example, I decided to become a vegan in November. Let me make one thing crystal clear — deciding to eschew all animal-based products is the easy part. Doing so is far harder.

Having grandly announced this penitential dietary change in advance of the festive season, I arrived to spend Christmas in scotland with 30 members of my husband’s clan just as a honey-roast ham was being prepped for dinner.

My hostess and sister-in-law handed me a red pepper and said, ‘stuff it’, and Reader, I did. I stuffed veganism two hours after my arrival and rebadged myself as a ‘flexitarian’, to general hilarity and derision.

One of the consolations of advancing age is greater self-knowledge, and therefore this year I have determinedly not set myself a challenge, such as Veganuary or Dry January, that I know in advance I’m going to fail.

Resolutions are doomed at the outset, as they tend to centre on giving up the very things that make life worth living, such as chocolate, cheese or Chardonnay. even thinking about giving up cheddar makes me break out in a cold sweat.

Having said that, I like the 1970s notion of ‘Janu-hairy’ (as proposed by Nessa in the Gavin & stacey Christmas special). Given the fashionability of rewilding our gardens and public lands — it’s a storyline in the archers, and the book of 2019 was Wilding by Isabella

‘ We give up things that make life living’ worth

tree — why don’t women start at home and ‘rewild’ our own bodies? You don’t even have to do anything.

But, no, instead of making resolutions, I’ve determined on a new direction for the decade. I am going into the 2020s with thumper’s quote from Disney’s Bambi at the top of my mind: ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.’

the next bit of our island story will, I hope, be about unity, not division; about healing, not warring; about respect, not abuse. I want to detoxify and de- escalate personal and public discourse. If I see a snake in my path, I’m not going to kick it, I’m going to step over it.

I am going to make a superhuman effort not to stir the pot, and be nice, not nasty, I promised myself.

‘ Does that include me?’ my husband queried when I told him of my plan. I looked at him and my irritation bubbled.

‘No!’ I barked, then realised I had failed before 2020 had even begun.