2008 begins as an undesirably blank canvas. The natural reaction when faced with such a clean slate at the new year might be to contrive a grand set of resolutions, over-ambitiously clawing at physical, social and professional achievement to replace whatever it is that’s missing.

But resolutions never stick. They’re too fickle a motivator. Reeling off a list of new or old activities that should be done. Because they should. Maybe it’s good for the health, or maybe it’s ‘needed’, or maybe someone has just been nagging. It’s never going to happen without actually wanting to do it. Sitting down and writing a list of resolutions is all an exercise in ‘should’ and not ‘want’; setting chores to get annoyed about later. Get annoyed about doing them, and get annoyed about skipping them. Really, new year resolutions are just a tedious exercise in catch 22.

Life has ways of filling its own blanks, inevitably quicker than is preferable. A set of frail resolutions to keep artificially busy from January 1st onward is only going frustrate matters.

On that basis, better to pass on the whole stupid routine.