The joys of unrealistic New Year’s resolutions

There’s something so depressing about the newspapers’ tips for sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions that to shield yourself from boredom and irritation, you may decide not to make any at all. But they can be rather romantic; the diplomat Harold Nicolson had a tender affection for resolutions, much preferring them to Christmas.

How far more delightful, how far less cumbersome, is the search for New Year’s resolutions. No careful planning is required for this catalogue; the resolutions trip merrily along together, as gay as a group of children leaving school…One should realise that the ease with which they buzz and settle implies an equal capacity for being able, in the dark days of January, to flit away. They should be treated tenderly as butterflies; smiling affectionately, one should observe their happy movements and their volatile stance; they are but the insects of an hour—let them be gay and irresponsible while their short span of life may last.