Resolutions for the 2017 New Year That You Don't Have to Keep

It's the New Year on Planet Earth, which from space you can tell by that little drunken wobble as the parade of midnights travels from east to west.

Typically, this is when even life's winners feel like they have to improve on their perfections by making resolutions that they will not be able to keep for more than a week and thus be faced, however briefly, with the depressing fact that they are no better than anybody else and possibly much much worse. Therefore, in the spirit of interplanetary goodwill, which I am only able to feel for you because of humanity living light years away from my corner of the heavens, I will provide you with a set of resolutions that will be good for you whether you keep them or break them. I got one for body, heart, and mind.

Resolved: not to eat until I explode.

The win-win: No matter how much you eat, you aren't breaking your resolution unless you actually do manage to eat until you explode, in which case you will make it into all kinds of record books and scientific studies, guaranteeing the immortality of fame to an otherwise nonentity.

 Resolved: perform one act of kindness for someone every day.

The win-win: If you do something nice for another person, you get to feel superior. If you don't do something nice for anybody else, think of how kind that is to yourself to not have to put yourself to the trouble of figuring out how to help somebody and then actually doing it. You are someone, so you count just as much as the rest of the losers.

Resolved: to read a book whenever I feel tired.

The win-win: Reading is something everybody agrees is virtuous, certainly more virtuous than napping, and it gives you an excuse to put your feet up and to ignore other people who try to talk to you. If you fail and fall asleep instead, well then you get your nap after all.