The Resolution That Never Dies

My resolutions for 2015 are to accomplish the resolutions of 2014, which I should have done in 2013 because I promised them in 2012 and planned them in 2011…

Well… the years could certainly go backwards as I count the umpteen New Years that have passed me by, during which I had diligently prepared exhaustive lists of do’s and don’ts, should-do’s and could-do’s that filled crisp, white pages of diaries that I invariably managed to misplace.

Just the other day, as I was cleaning out my bookshelf, out came a blue, hard-bound diary from 2010 that was stashed away with some of my ‘should-read-again’ favourite books.

I opened it excitedly and guess what!

There was this list of my resolutions for the year 2010, listed out on the very first page, in my best handwriting. It went something like this:

1. Lose weight
2. Enrol in the gym
3. Start yoga
4. Snack on salads and fruits
5. Cut out sweets from my diet
6. Go for a walk daily
7. Tidy up my cupboard often
8. Get more organised
9. Spend time gardening
10. Find a new hobby

Ha! Looks like some resolutions never change!

If I were to create a list today, I am certain that it would contain more or less similar goals, with the weight-loss goal being foremost among them.

For one, the ‘weighty issue’ that I have had to confront since God knows when has never been solved till now. My ideal weight is still eons away, very much beyond sight. But hopeful and optimistic that I am, I still ponder diligently over ways and means of losing my stubborn flab.

Was it King Solomon who said, “Try, try, try again”?

Every child of this generation knows that diminishing the blubber requires strong control over the diet. That is exactly when the sensible mind in me listed cutting out sweets from my diet as one of my goals.

Each year, the first two weeks of January sees me as a totally controlled person, careful about each morsel that enters my mouth. I stock up my fridge with carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes and all the good stuff that promises a stomach full of healthy calories.

Then comes a Sunday, when someone walks in with a box full of Black Forest pastries and forces me to take a teeny-weeny bite.

That’s it.

Then it is a long wait until the coming January 1st, when I restart my no-sweets resolution.

Looking back at the year 2010, I think I really deserved a pat on the back because, true to my list of goals, I remember having enrolled in both a gym and a yoga class.

Every single day, for about six months, as the clock struck six in the morning, I would drive down to the yoga class, sleepy-eyed but filled with enthusiasm, and do bouts of Surya Namaskars, yoga mudras, Vipareeta Karani and a whole lot of other asanas under the watchful eye of the zero-sized instructor, who would be comfortably sitting on a pedestal, blurting out instructions.

I must say that the only thing I lost in those six months was an extra hour of sleep that I would otherwise have enjoyed.

True to my Gemini blood, I gave it up in about six months’ time…

The gym was another story altogether, where a bunch of like-figured, not-so-petite ladies soon formed a ‘bum-chum’ association. Very soon, someone or the other would always be bringing some homemade goodies to eat, just so that we didn’t get too bored on the treadmill or elliptical trainer.

In about three months’ time, I was ready to give that up too. My gain this time was quite a few valuable bonds of friendship that are still going strong, along with a few inevitable kilos.

The other things on my list had more or less the same fate and will be a subject for another day.

But I must say one thing about myself.

Being a diehard optimist, and a stubborn one at that, I never give up on creating resolutions.

Today, I am sitting in front of a brand-new diary, listing out my resolutions for 2015.

Inevitably, the first on the list is a goal to ‘lose weight’.