Enough with the resolutions you won’t keep. If you haven’t quit smoking for all the health reasons we all know, the magic date of Jan.1 is probably not going to suddenly spur you into becoming a non-smoker.
Ditto for going to the gym more often, losing that persistent 20 pounds, eating more fruits, vegetables and fibre with fewer trips to Tim’s and the corner store for those mid-afternoon munchies.
As your community newspaper, your success is our goal. Here are some resolutions you can actually keep:
1. Put an empty peanut butter jar or yogurt container in your sock drawer. Throw your spare change into it whenever you remember. A year from now you will have a tidy donation to a favourite charity and you will even get a tax receipt.
2. Smile at someone you don’t know, preferably someone who doesn’t look like you.
3. Go through your bookshelves and collect the stuff you will never read again but you once enjoyed and donate it to your nearest hospital foundation. Books are sold to support patient care and hospital equipment.
4. Many good resolutions live at the grocery store. Put a few extra items in your cart, pay for them, and put them in the food bank box before you leave. Put your cart back; don’t leave it taking up a parking space or running loose banging into cars. Families who use food banks also have much-loved pets, so put some pet food in the box too. Help an older person carry their groceries.
5. Tell a politician that you use and enjoy your city’s public library. And do it.
6. Don’t swear in public. Nobody wants to hear your @#$%^@$^^ opinions.
7. Those of us lucky enough to own homes in this crazy market, stop telling young people you paid under $100,000. How does that help them?
Not at all.
8. Clean out your closet and donate that 1980s blazer to a thrift store. Somebody may want it for a Halloween costume. And if they don’t, at least it may trigger some fond memories.
9. Let someone in the lane in front of you without making them beg. This could be on the highway or in the grocery lineup. It’s a little thing that is just good manners.
10. Pick up somebody else’s Tim Hortons cup off of the sidewalk and throw it in the trash. Cleanliness is next to coffeeness.
See? These are resolutions we can all keep. You’re welcome.
