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BY HERBERT VEGO
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Thursday, December 29, 2016
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HAVE you written your 2017 New Year’s resolution?
For whatever it’s worth to you, I have fulfilled my New Year’s resolution for the now “dying” year 2016, one of which is to ignore branded or signature products and patronize cheaper but better alternatives. For thrift and health reasons, I prefer carinderias that serve fish and vegetables to “fine-dining” restaurants. If I wear a Lacoste shirt today, it’s only because refusing a branded gift is an insult to the giver.
The effort has done wonders. I have survived degenerative diseases that could have led me to the grave.
I have trimmed down expenses, enabling me to pay off all debts.
A retired bank manager has advised me to shun credit cards and use, whenever possible, an ATM card for grocery purchases. It’s simply because what’s in the ATM card is earned, not borrowed, money. Credit cards, on the other hand, charge interest on purchases.
Frankly, however, it is not unusual for us Filipinos to break a “prudent spending” resolution. Unexpected emergency situations can drain in one click the money that has taken years to save. I have been through it many times.
Writing a New Year’s resolution is what freshmen high school students do to fulfill an assignment in English. I vividly remember when Ma’am Illuminada Delgado asked us students to write one. Mine was “to study harder.” In retrospect, it was unnecessary and senseless because I had already been studying “hardest” to compensate for my poor memory.
We like to think of New Year’s resolution as another Christian tradition. But it is not, as I found out only a few days ago while reading an article written by an American Protestant preacher. He wrote that that the tradition of making a New Year’s resolution had preceded the Christian era. It began in ancient Babylon over 3,000 years ago. Does such an origin matter?
If it matters, it’s only because there’s no religious angle to it. If we wax ecstatic, it’s because we are under the spell of the illusion that the transition from an old to a new year brings with it a fresh start although there’s really nothing mystical that occurs at midnight of Dec. 31. The figurative “turning a new leaf” could be done on any date.
However, if a Christian decides to make a New Year’s resolution, what should it be?
While surfing the internet for this column, I came across a reproduction of the original 15th-century New Year’s resolution attributed to Roman Catholic Bishop John H. Vincent, which I am quoting verbatim below:
“I will this day try to live a simple, sincere and serene life, repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity and self-seeking, cultivating cheerfulness, magnanimity, charity and the habit of holy silence, exercising economy in expenditure, carefulness in conversation, diligence in appointed service, fidelity to every trust and a child-like trust in God.”
For a New Year’s resolution to succeed there must always be a strong basis. The resolution to stop smoking could best succeed where fear of catching lung cancer intervenes.
To the reader who wants my two cents’ worth, my first advice is: Be realistic. Betting on lotto is counterproductive; the chance of hitting the 6/55 draw is one in 28 million.
Second, be specific. Instead of “I will no longer be lazy,” resolve to “maximize time for work and minimize time for TV viewing.”
Third, look for alternatives to bad habits. For instance, do not wait for tomorrow what you can do today. As the saying goes, “The early bird catches the worm.”/PN
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