The New Year Resolutions and The Bucket List

Now that the New Year has arrived, it is time for making a new year resolution. I have always done it, so notwithstanding the fact that some resolutions never got implemented, I thought why not continue the rich tradition. Traditions are important and one must respect them.

The three New Year resolutions people often make and I too made a number of times need to be addressed first. Quit smoking, Quit drinking and Exercise regularly are those that everyone would have made at some point of time in life. Quit smoking and drinking are not a problem. I quit smoking when I was very young and I had never taken to drinking except occasionally. I suppose that is not bad for health. And I have started [restarted to be precise, why twist facts?] morning walk every day since last week. So how can it be a part of the New Year’s resolution?

Sulabha, my wife, suggests that some resolutions should be made together. Like ‘we will try to understand each other’ or ‘spend more time together’. I would like to caution all young newly married couples to stay away from making such resolutions. These can never be fulfilled and will remain only as a wish list!

Resolutions do not work, isn’t it? There is a reason for it. This became the subject of research. They have discovered that it is all about ‘self control’. Do not laugh. The researchers have a rich history of discovering what was known to people for ages.

Have you seen the movie ‘The Bucket List’? In it a cancer patient who has been told that he has one year to live makes a list of things he would like to do before he kicks the bucket.

Why do we take a bucket list seriously and not a New Year resolution? Is it because we realise that time is running out when we make a bucket list; and when we make a New Year list we feel that we are immortal?

The bucket list [the one made by the hero in the movie, you may like to add to this list in 2009]

Witness something truly majestic
Help a complete stranger for a common good
Laugh till I cry
Drive a Shelby Mustang
Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world
Get a tattoo
Skydiving
Visit Stonehenge
Spend a week at the Louvre
See Rome
Dinner at La Cherie d’Or
See the Pyramids
Get back in touch (previously “Hunt the big cat”)
Visit Taj Mahal, India
Hong Kong
Victoria Falls
Serengeti
Ride the Great Wall of China

Vivek