The flaw that makes us fail

by Sharan Saikumar

Every year around Christmas All India Radio belts out John and Yoko’s Merry Christmas ( War is Over) and every year the opening line stings me ‘ So this is Christmas , what have you done? Another year over, a new one just begun.’

Infected by guilt that the duo no doubt intended, my mind goes resolution-making-mode sticking to the noble, character building one’s that promote goodness, truth and peace.  But by the time 1st Jan approaches, I have usually down-traded all of them in pursuit of the one and only goal, the holy grail and godhead - rapid weight loss. To prove to myself that I am not a shallow  person I try earnestly to find a link between this and world peace  ( an individuals-happiness-affects-the-universe kind of reasoning) but I readily admit that it’s a tenuous one.

‘Is it not stupid’ Montaigne once asked, ‘to let myself be fooled so many times by one guide?’  Apparently not.  Everyone knows that New Year resolutions are made to be broken and still we make them. We make them knowing, statistically speaking, we have a greater chance of flying to the moon than sticking to one. (Ok maybe not ‘statistically’ but  at least ‘realistically’)

According to every research around New Year resolutions (yes people will research almost anything) weight loss is the one thing we want most in this world. More than world peace.  We may call it getting healthy or we  may even say boldfaced lies like ‘ I don’t want to lose weight, I just want to get fit’ but trust me, we just want to be thin!  The million-dollar question, however, is after all the repeated resolutions, why are we not?

The cynic would submit that we are generally the kind of people who are totally incapable of willpower or control. I, for one am not ready to take the blame. The people who fail at these are the same people who achieve dazzling sales targets, make kick-ass presentations, produce well-adjusted children and have managed to lose weight after each well-adjusted child popped out . Why then do we continue to falter at this particular mountain? Why do 60 percent of gym memberships signed up in January go un-utilized?

The culprit I believe is December.  There exists a fundamental timing flaw in the concept of a New Year resolution  i.e –  New Year.  This resolution typicallyemerges in the midst of excesses committed at the end of the year.  December is the ultimate hedonists month.  Every year as this month rolls in with winter parties, house-guests, weddings and holidays we launch ourselves into a food and booze marathon. As Christmas approaches this marathon gets into overdrive.   Every office abandons even the pretense of work and we dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of la dolce vita. Bircher muesli is abandoned in favor of bacon, sangria followed by siestas become the order of the afternoon and chocolate becomes the main course.  So it’s only natural that as we emerge hazy eyed and hung over from this food orgy even the most dedicated salad dodger will vow to enter into a committed relationship with broccoli. In this deeply repentant frame of mind we make ridiculous resolutions that set us up for failure – work out everyday when we haven’t worked out for the last 11 months, eat only salad when we’ve snacked relentlessly on fries, drink 4 liters of water when all we’ve drunk all month is above 30 proof.  Extremism is our ready answer to excesses and it’s usually the wrong one.

January, on a full stomach, is an unpleasant month. On lettuce it’s unbearable. It’s as cold as December but without the warmth of celebration.  Not only do we have the whole year ahead to deal with but we now have to deal with it in a state of deprivation.  It is the month we desperately need our vices , the month that begs for cheer. But, by now we’ve made our resolution and gone and put up a status on Facebook.  So we stick it out with the lettuce until one fine day (research pegs this day around the beginning of February)  we collapse in front of the TV and with a shaking hand dial the emergency number and whisper the golden words  ‘one pizza with extra cheese’. And just like that it’s all over.

Could we maybe break this cycle if we didn’t make a resolution while we were bingeing?  Would the results differ if we made it when we are restored to sanity? Of all the people who ever gave up smoking you’ll find that most of them didn’t do it as a New Year resolution. In fact only 15 percent of smokers who resolved to give up smoking around New Year stuck to it. Which means that 85 percent probably went on to quit smoking on a regular day, a day on which they woke up clear eyed and in full possession of their faculties and without over-reacting,  decided that they simply don’t want to do this anymore.

To avoid becoming a failed New Year resolution statistic I’m going to let January roll by. In this one month I’m going to let the body and soul recover from December, let the mind wrap itself around 2012 and when that is done I will make my resolve. Or, on the other hand, I will simply accept that 2012 could be the last year of my existence and that self improvement is boring, tedious and immensely dull and that I am and will always be weak willed, terminally shallow and incredibly greedy person.  John and Yoko will just have to find another sucker for guilt.