A Fresh Start

A FRESH START.

Making a New Year’s resolution these days is like placing a modest bet on the Grand National. It’s great if you win (or succeed); it doesn’t really matter if you lose (or fail); and whatever the result this year, you can get to do the same thing next year. It seems that the contemporary

determination to make a fresh start at the New Year by making changes is rapidly frustrated by our indifference to the importance of the need to make a change.

As I embark upon another mission to abide by a stated New Year’s resolution, I’m curious as to how and why this annual trial has imposed itself upon us. It is believed that the practice originated with the ancient Babylonians, who curried favour with their Gods by warranting to settle their debts, paying the price of deific revenge if they did not. It was carried on by the Romans, who, rather than temporarily sacrificing a personal pleasure, like not drinking wine for a month, felt the need to offer the lives of animals or humans in an act of propitiation to their Gods. What’s more, as they looked backwards at the previous year and forwards to the coming year through Janus (the derivative of January) their sacrifices were accompanied by promises to lead better lives. Similarly, Christianity adopted the practice, omitting the ritualistic sacrificing of animals and humans but, in confessional mode, contemplating previous behaviour and vowing to be better in the future.

Thank God (if you’re a monotheist, or the Gods if you’re not)(and assuming any exist) now that new year’s resolutions have achieved a particularly secular characteristic, our ambition these days is not so lofty. Or is it not? Perhaps the devotees of “the soul of soulless conditions” and of “the opium of the masses” got off rather lightly. I mean, how difficult is it to lead a better life or vow to be better in the future? In the first place, goodness is subjective and to reach a particular point of goodness the goal posts can be moved to accommodate the promisor. Not to mention that the referee is not actually on the pitch for the entirety of the match; admittedly, the referee has a representative on earth, but said representative, though reputedly stern and sage, is arguably too imbued with human weaknesses and failings to be a credible substitute; which means that judgement needs must await judgement day; and if myth and reality have ever collided, we must believe that judgement day ne’er goes well.

Maybe it all comes down to specificity; the more specific you are, the harder it becomes. You cannot be more specific than resolving to give up drinking alcohol for one month; and you cannot be less specific than resolving to lead a better life; apart from anything else, How much harder is it, in the pursuit of change, in the pursuit of a fresh start, for a discerning, bon vivant lover of the grape to sacrifice his daily bottle of wine than for a church going believer in the holy trinity , the immaculate conception and the parting of the red sea to lead a better life? How much harder must it be for a less discerning bon vivant lover of hamburgers, take-away Chinese and Mars bars to live off only salads for a month and lose one stone in weight than for one who drinks wine thinking it is blood and eats a biscuit believing it is the body of a man to be a better person? In each case, considering the specificity of the resolution of the first party, it is unquestionable that the less specific the resolution, the easier the task.

This year I had two resolutions, which, to be honest, have been the same as for the last twenty years or so. No alcohol for at least one month and lose at least a stone in weight; and with equal honesty, I should point out that that’s really just one resolution, because when I give up drinking, I automatically lose weight.

By certain measures of my drinking habits (i.e. amount and frequency) I’m likely to be consigned to the “drunkard” locker; a generous assessor might add the description “functioning”, which is accurate in as much as I do function adequately, I rarely fall asleep at dinner, I do not drive when drunk, nor am I rude or aggressive and I’m as unselfish making love when drunk as I am when sober. However, when you add into the mix the fact that my mother was a hopeless alcoholic for most of her adult life (albeit that she pickled herself sufficiently to last till aged 85) I probably drop down a rung or two, even if I manage to stay off the bottom spot. There’s a saving grace too in as much as I am aware of my condition; and when I am not drinking I constantly feel that it would be right for me to give up for ever; before I retreat from that position. Can I change and thereby give myself not just a fresh beginning but a fresh middle and end; and will being under the cosh of a new year’s resolution facilitate change? On the matter of change generally, I refer you to the Alcoholics Anonymous’s serenity prayer (remembering that “God” can be who or what you want it to be) thus: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” Summoning all of my serenity, courage and wisdom, I am content to change for one month out of twelve.