New Year's (un)resolutions

It's that time of the year again. A time of hope and goodwill, a time for joy, a time for new hopes and promises. Yes, promises. It's time for some new New Year's resolutions!

I'm sure a lot of you must have tried out making resolutions before. And I'm sure that a lot of you have lost all faith in the resolution making system. I mean, hey, its very easy to make resolutions; and a different thing altogether to keep them.

"I've tried keeping resolutions before Mustafa" you'll will say. "I promised myself I would join a gym and get in shape last year, but all I did was sit in front of the TV and eat potato chips, and now my paunch is the size of a football".

Until now. Because Mustafa's here! And he's going to show you a fool proof way of how to make your New Year's Resolutions stick.

So are you ready for the big tip?

Alright, here goes. I call it the RR rule, or the Realistic Resolutions rule. It's a very simple rule: all it states is that you should make resolutions that you know are achievable, resolutions that are sort of easy to keep. You haven't understood? All right then, here are a few examples that will make this clear:

INCORRECT RESOLUTION: I will vist an exotic foreign locale, like say China. I will soak in the culture of the place, flirt with the natives, learn the Chinese language, cook snakes, and expand my mind and horizons.
REALISTIC RESOLUTION: I will eat hakka noodles.

INCORRECT RESOLUTION: I will improve my literary knowledge by reading an established classic, such as Dostovskey's "The Brothers Karamazov" or Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace"
REALISTIC RESOLUTION: I will go to the bookstore, try to pick up one of the above mentioned books, and finding them too heavy, will go to the corner where they sell XXX magazines.

INCORRECT RESOLUTION: Dear Santa Claus, this Christmas please put a beautiful girl under my pillow for me to find when I wake up. Make her hair blonde, her face oval and her eyes blue.
REALISTIC RESOLUTION: Dear Santa Claus, this Christmas put any female species under my pillow. Preferably human. And alive.

INCORRECT RESOLUTION: I will have a hearty laugh, because this article is so well written, and then I will send Mustafa an email and tell him how much I appreciate his writing.
REALISTIC RESOLUTION: I will have a hearty laugh, because this article is so well written, and then I will log off and shut down my computer, and let Mustafa think that no one ever visits his website.

Are you with me so far?

If so then congratulations! You have just been given the secret to health, wealth and happiness! Make Realistic Resolutions (c), and watch your dreams come true!

Me? Oh, I intend to keep each resolution I make. Each and every single one of them. Dilligently.

STARTING FROM NEXT YEAR