- Concerning your resolve –
How many weeks is it since you made that tortured promise?  How many nights have you awoken in a cold sweat, your boiling eyes dragging you from some hideous nightmare?  How many times have you gone over the impassioned speech that condemned you to this unmitigated sadness? As the months pass, and the rosy veil of stupidity is lifted from your mind, you realize how desperately dumb it was to make a new year's resolution.
The reason we make promises on the eve of a new year has nothing to do with the hope and hidden promise of what is to come. It is based on the fact that at any other time of the year no-one would be gullible enough to do something so idiotic.  Were you over-stuffed with Christmas joy or full to the brim with ale, eager to make an impression or convinced change was necessary? Was it at the bustling dinner table or whispered in the sanctuary of the bedroom?  As everyone else shuffled out of 1998, as they congratulated you and patted your back, they were oblivious to the little black cloud of misery you'd tied to your head. Since that ground-breaking foolishness you've been searching for something to release you – here it is.  The three areas you must address in order to break the promise: personal, emotional, legal.
 

-Personal-
To make a resolution suggests that there is something about you that is wrong, vulgar, unattractive, odious, beligerent, crass, objectionable and yet, somehow, redeemable.  You are placed in the unenviable position of admitting to a character flaw or personality trait that you can rectify.  It's never enough to say you'll fix it, it has to be seen to be fixed.  For a resolution to be complete it must be witnessed. And there's the problem: we're obsessed with magnanimous gestures and god-like goals we can never hope to achieve.  Resolutions should be human and shallow, like ourselves.  I vow to bemore attractive, or more popular, or dress to the left. In 1999 I promise to eat less dog food, not chase the elderly, be pleasant when I can be bothered. If we allow ourselves our evil nature to dominate, then the resolution would be a thing of self-destrictive joy.  I promise to be hedonistic, obsessive, to gamble, to drink excessively, to smoke until my cancered colon is ripped from my body.  When you realise your objective was unattainable, you're ready for the next step.
 

-Emotional-
We rarely, if ever, change to suit ourselves, we do it to accommodate others. There's a tenet you can live your life by that ensures the peer pressure involved in making a resolution becomes a thing of the past.  It's a simple and dignified mantra that you can chant in front of a mirror or, if the need arises, it can be spoken aloud.  – "I'm OK, you're stuffed!"  Once you have decided to solve the dilemma of your resolution, by bringing it to a premature end, you may need the support of your family and friends. If you can't break a promise to those closest to you, who can you break a promise to?
It's different to stand up and proudly proclaim that you're weak and you lied, at the same time once it's done, it's done.  The onus then falls on whoever cares to accept it or not.  If they do, the time is ripe to make other confessions: I assassinated the Archduke of Ferdinand, the Marconi scandal was my fault, I encouraged Bourke and Wills on their fateful trip.  While they're stunned into silence, you could take the opportunity to mention all the failed resolutions from years gone by.
 

-Legal-
No court in the land could prosecute you for having failed to deliber on a new year's resolution, so legally speaking you're in the clear.  (Unless your resolution contravenes the law – eg: to break out of prison before March.)    If it ever makes it to the courthouse there are dozens of reaons why your promise would be considered invalid. You were adversely affected by the altruism of the evening and rendered momentarily insane.  You were swept along with the mob mentality of a group of bare-arsed, trumpet-blowing revellers.  You were face down in a mass of someone else's stomach lining with a yard glass fused to your lips as you threw up your resolution.
In the end you can't change who you are.  The sun and moon are chained to their course and birds flock together:  there is no escape. It's time to accept that you're a deceitful pile of bacteria-ridden skin held together by ear wax and bad breath.  If you were capable of being a better person, you would be ready.  So this year, resolve to never make another resolution.
They say you're only as good as your word, bu tthen they're the ones smart enough to keep their mouths shut.
 

--Paul McDermott    the Australian Magazine