In today’s Publetariat Dispatch, author Alan Baxter explains why he’s done with making New Year’s Resolutions. WARNING: Post contains strong language.

I don’t really believe in new year’s resolutions. I get the concept, and it’s an entirely admirable pursuit, but it’s often like crash dieting or NaNoWriMo – it’s fundamentally unsustainable. People make all these promises to themselves in the heat and excitement of a new year, and then sink in guilt and stress when those things may not come to pass.

After all, January 1st is only one day after December 31st and it’s entirely arbitrary that we choose to tack onto that day a new identifier for the year. The Chinese aren’t celebrating their new year until February 10th next year, for example. It’s all bollocks, as is all time. As Terry Pratchett said, we just invented time to stop everything happening at once. Which is funny, but also not true. Time is a purely human invention to help us make sense of things and organise when to meet at the pub.

My simple point is this: making specific resolutions for the new year is a fine sentiment, but it’s often very hard to follow through. For example, saying, “I will lose 20kg in 2013” is potentially opening a person up to failure. But if you say, “I will be a healthier person in 2013: eat healthy, exercise and try to lose some weight”