A little bit better every day

I think he was talking about New Year resolutions.

You'll be reading this column on the most dismal day of the year, smack in between the compulsory delights of Christmas and New Year. It's the day we tell ourselves, next year is going to be better. Next year, I'm going to be better.

I like listening. I suppose that's why people at the town hall or down the gym or simply friends having a coffee, have told me about their resolutions. Some are predictable. Cut down on the drink, step up the exercise, lose a bit of weight, knock the pies and cakes on the head, give up smoking. I wish them all success, particularly with the last one.

Others have been a bit more complex. One pal swore he would trade in his top-of-the-range gas-guzzler for a low-emission car. Another said he liked wine too much to give it up completely, but he would only have a glass or two, Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturdays. All sincerely believed that this year, they would keep their pledge.

I know how they feel. Earlier this year, I tried to follow the example of my Muslim friends and fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Well, I lasted three days. Then the lure of coffee - or the 80 per cent milk, 20 per cent water apology for coffee that I drink - proved too strong.

This concoction, plus my other weakness, chocolate biscuits, have been at the heart of my own soul-searching as I have cast around for a resolution. Like my wine connoisseur friend, I've thought about partial abstinence, maybe having biscuits one day, then coffee the next.

But the coffee only tastes nice if I have a biscuit to go with it. And you can't have a biscuit without a drink, preferably something tasting vaguely of coffee, can you? I bet he is now working out what to do if a birthday or anniversary falls on one of his teetotal days. Will he be cheating if he has a celebratory tipple then?

THE fact is that all of us know that if we forego our guilty pleasures for a day or two, we will soon be back in the old routine.

It won't be long before the date at the gym clashes with a vital business meeting, or we have that extra piece of cake because Aunt Mabel made it especially and it would be rude not to. Because like St Augustine, we're simply not ready to change.

What struck me about all these resolutions was that, deep down, the things we wanted to give up, we didn't really like that much in the first place. The extra drink, cake or cigarette, that disgusting mixture I swallow far too often.

They all make us feel bad about ourselves.

Also, none of us needed to wait until New Year's Day to give them up. We could have done it today, yesterday, or on Bonfire Night if we had really wanted. There is nothing magic about New Year's Day, no formula that gives us all the willpower of supermen. We wake up the same flawed, weak, but essentially decent human beings that went to sleep the night before.

So perhaps that's the best resolution for 2008.

To recognise that we are fallible, that over the next 12 months we will fall short of what other people expect from us and what we expect from ourselves. But that as long as we keep on trying to do just a little bit better every day, whether for our own well-being or other people's, then it might not be such a bad year after all.

And now as my coffee's getting cold and someone is trying to pinch the last chocolate finger, I had better sign off. Have a happy New Year.