Several of my favorite comic strip writers have been commenting on the need for "absolution" for failed New Year's Resolutions. How many decades, centuries, have people been plaguing themselves with the "need" to make some type of resolution at the start of each year? I suppose there is some valut to it--turning over a new leaf, getting a fresh start, trying to do better each year ... but the end is usually the same: the resolutions are not kept!

Is humanity fundamentally flawed? Is that what Original Sin is all about? Should we just give up and resolve not to resolve? Would that solve the problem like reverse physhology sometimes works on children? Wouldn't that make an interesting study for some PHD thesis? 

I solve it more simply by keeping my resolutions so vague that anything I do can be considered at least a partial success. In that way I have "kept" my resolution. Here's a typical example: Resolved, lose ten pounds. Lose a pound one week and you are 1/10th the way there. Find the pound, and you've still lost it, right? So if you lose, but then find ten pounds, you've still "lost" ten pounds and kept your resolution. 

Somehow in 2024, I managed to lose 15 pounds, but I ended the year four pounds up from where I started. But I had still "kept" my original resolution all the same.

How did you do in 2024? Do you need absolution for your failed resolution? Or did you keep it like I did? 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!