The 10 worst New Year’s resolutions : Because you were never going to keep them anyway

It’s New Year’s – an unremarkable day except that 2000 years ago Emperor Julius Ceasar randomly selected it for the ritualistic annua renovatio (annual replacement) of the Imperial Kitchen Wall Calendar, and its corresponding images of fat babies dressed as flowers and tacos, big-eyed kittens and half-naked firemen.

Thus, January 1 was arbitrarily chosen to begin each Roman Calendar year. It was arbitrarily retained for Pope Gregory XIII’s Gregorian Calendar, which became all of Europe’s calendar, and in turn European colonizers arbitrarily made January 1 the start off the whole world’s calendar year due to their snooty insistence that everybody adopt their habits.

So in honor of the Europeans, from whom we got our New Year’s, the world’s inhabitants today perform the ritual of coming up with New Year’s Resolutions – self-improvement projects that begin each year and last about as long as Europeans ever kept a treaty: roughly two weeks.

Find a boyfriend/girlfriend
If you’re already depressed about being single, you’re likely too picky or looking in the wrong places – which this resolution fixes by attaching you to the next single person you talk to.

Start earning more money
By pegging the outcome of a New Year’s resolution to the overall economy, you can dismiss potential failure with a chance to blame Obama.

Start loving “me” more
If this is the first idea that pops into your head, you’re probably a person who needs it least – but that means you have a good chance of success, while your family and friends won’t hold it against you if you fail.

Find a friend to quit smoking with you
Convince a friend to become your quit-smoking buddy, scoring an extra good deed if it’s someone who didn’t really plan on quitting. That means every time she apologetically lights up in your presence, you can bum one and renew your effort for “next week.”

Find a non-smoking friend to help you quit
Ensure that a daily supportive phone call “if you need to talk about it,” will remind you of the cigarette craving you just managed to get out of your head. A real exercise in willpower!

Join a gym to start exercising
If you are already unable to motivate yourself to jog or do daily pushups at home, paying for a gym membership you won’t use will, at least, help boost an ailing economy.

Add healthy meals to your crappy diet
When you’ve polished off your burger and fries, force yourself to eat a second meal of roasted vegetables and brown rice. Then list your daily fruit and vegetable intake as you tell your doctor you’re perplexed you’re still gaining weight.

Commit to regular de-stress time
During inevitable periods when your workload gets out of control, just ask yourself why you have no time left over for you and your resolution. Nothing takes a load off the mind like thinking about how everybody has unreasonable expectations of you.

Make a vague or abstract resolution
If you commit yourself to “be nicer” or “save money,” your goal is fail-proof. Later on, you can attribute that one time you gave someone a ride or bought the “buy one get one free” peanuts to your resolution’s success.

Resolve to keep doing something you already do
You may not change your life, but you’ll have a smug sense of satisfaction when your friends say they’ve given up on their resolutions and you’re still going strong. l