New Year's Resolutions I Won't Keep

I asked a friend of mine recently if she had made any New Year's Resolutions. She shrugged. "I think if you try your best every day, then you don't really need to suddenly try to make big changes all at once," she said.

I think there is some truth to that -- but only some. I do find the psychological aspect of a deadline to be helpful.

That being said, I have not made any New Year's Resolutions myself yet, but I have ruled out several, such as:

• Learn to love Sudoku: I completely get that this game is good for your brain and my mental math skills are in need of a little polishing. But try as I might, I cannot see what is fun about Sudoku. In fact, it seems like a chore - a devilish, maddeningly complicated chore.
• Wake up on time every day: I currently use four alarms (yes, four) and still can't seem to roll out of bed when I plan to. I have just come to accept that any resolution I make to wake up in a more timely and orderly fashion is just doomed from the start.
• Read a biography: I like books. I like history. I like interesting people. So why have I never finished a biography? That's a question I ask myself every time I see the biography of John James Audubon staring dolefully at me from the shelf from which it hasn't moved since I bought it.
• Eat more weird vegetables: This is one of those perennial goals of mine. I eat a lot of vegetables, but they tend to be the usual suspects; tomatoes, carrots, spinach. I have more times than I can count made up my mind to incorporate more squash, beets and parsnips, etc. into my diet. I often do well for a week, pretty well for another week and then fall of the wagon really hard. I still want to do this; it's just that, with history as my guide, I am guessing I won't.