New Year’s Resolution’s: The mis-understood self-improvement tool

by oBelIX

[Authors Note: The American Travelogue will be completed later. At this point I am too moo to write parts VII onwards. All the facts and figures quoted in this post are either figments of my imagination or copied from the Internet. If this post leads to a lifestyle shattering revolution then please do leave a comment thanking the author and honk SOS at a pretty girl on the street 🙂]

New Year’s Resolutions as defined by wikipedia [The defacto starting point for all non-porn related gyaan-searching on the internet] is: a commitment that an individual makes to a project or the reforming of a habit, often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as advantageous.

Now, most of us do not know how to properly utilize this marvelous tool for self-improvement. What we do know is how to properly mis-utilize this tool, which then leads to sadness, depression and the mis-labeling of January as the worst month of the year. [Author: that is true – people think January sucks]

I have only recently discovered the not-so-visible power that can be harnessed. In fact when this realization first hit me, i felt like moo. [Author’s note: A separate post will follow eventually on the many forms of the word moo; not much unlike the many virtual avatars that we don on the interweb].

Getting started

The first step is of course to figure out what you want. Taking my own <insert appropriate adjective here as per your taste> self as an example, at the start of the year I wanted to:

1. Get in shape
2. Read more
3. Obtain ngyanam on worldly matters

How not to make resolutions

The layman’s attempt of making resolutions at this would go:

1. Go jogging at 6 am in the morning for one hour everyday
2. Read one story book every week
3. Study samskritam, the holy scriptures, wikipedia so as to find moo

This, infact is the most flawed set of resolutions in the world. Analyzing from an engineering perspective we find that:

1. There are no fallbacks in case fail to meet something
2. The goals are too specific
3. The time boundaries are too strict
4. It’s just too much work.

In short, the quotient of moo in these draft resolutions is so high that only a very thin hippopotamus would even consider them. [The fact that many variants of the above set of resolutions abound implies that thin hippopotamii are not on the verge of extinction]

The correct set of resolutions

For the above stated goals, the correct set of resolutions that would help the individual [in this case me] achieve my desired objectives are:

1. Stop eating pizzas
2. Eat more chaat
3. Read story books on airplane journeys when you did not put a good movie on the zune
4. Finish more than 3 xbox games this year

An analysis of the above, correct set of resolutions

Resolution 1 and 2 address the desire for getting in shape. [Comments on the absolute pointlessness of this desire will be deleted and the mental stability of the author’s of such comments would be questioned leading to their virtual humiliation]. Based on the fact that pizzas are bad for health and I consume too many of them, cutting down on pizzasa would help get in shape.

There is a safeguard built in. Even if I renege on resolution 1 I still have hope. After compensating, by eating enough chaat, I can ensure that I still maintain shape.

The “moo” of chaat

This paragrapah is for the skeptics who are wondering how the above statement is true. Chaat is an excellent source of nutrition. Consider the following points:

1. The masalaa of the paav-bhaji is bright red – the colour of carrots and is full of vitaamin A and extremely good for eyes
2. Most chaat items contain an abundance of spice which is good for digestion
3. Chaat items with curd in them are good for the body because:
1. Curd has protein (being derived from a milk product)
2. Curd is cold – leading to a calm, soothing, destressing effect
3. Curd contains the amino acid – mega-phenylo-benzylo-butatic-parmesan-bananoic-orangus-oxynucleic-tri-chromato-sino-indo-pakistano-barackobamic-bin-ladenic-bournvillesucks-phospate which clinical studies have shown reduces the chances of coming up with stupid names for non-existant amino acids by upto 80%.
4. Most chaat items also contain DHMO [DiHydrogenMonoOxide] which actually flows by the quart in our veins
5. The dhaniya added on top of chaat is a green vegetable and I’m sure your mothers must have told you about the benefits of eating green vegetables

Analysis (contd)

Resolutions 3 and 4 ensure that no matter what I do not feel sad. Consider the first set of resolutions. They said, “Read a book every week”. That is clearly impossible. I would have blown it in the first week itself and then felt sad and depressed.

By relaxing the book reading criteria, I now ensure that whenever possible I do read a book. This means I get the best of both worlds – by the end of the year I will be very well read and not sad. In the worst case, even if I do renege, and don’t read a single book, come next december, when I take stock, I can look to myself and proudly say, “Yeaah baby, I finished 6 games this year”. There is no way thata I am going to be sad 🙂

Conclusion*

I am sure, that by now you see clearly, how to exploit new year’s resolutions for actually making ground breaking changes in your lifestyle without much fuss or feeling sad if you do break them. This is one of the many potent weapons in your arsenal in your quest towards moo-ness and I hope you now have some understanding on how to use it.

As always, it was a pleasure to share insight with a bunch of hugely talented gents such as you and do come back at some point of time for another post – most probably the continuation of the american journeys [yes, more excitement there as well] or the one on moo

*For those of you pedantic wonderers resolutions for point 3 of my todo list is left as an exercise for you guys.

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