You may or may not be those people who make grand New Year resolutions. On the one extreme are those who do not know what a resolution is and there isn’t enough column space to define it; on the other are those who have a New Year resolution book. They have an entire book of resolutions for that year; seeing as they started making resolutions when they were six, they probably have a library by now. This type does mid-year reviews to check how close they are to hitting all the targets of the year. If you have a friend in this last category, go high-five them.
Regardless of which category you fall in, there are a few things that we honestly needn’t carry into the New Year (yeah right, like reading this column will actually make you beat your chest, cover yourself in ash, weep and then change your habits). ‘Leave it in 2013’ trended on Twitter (which is a website that industrious people go to be informed about the socio-political state of the world…and also to run away from Facebook). I stole the topic from there. This sneakily implies that I am also industrious since I use the site myself. Like once a month but still, that counts for something. According to Twitter, one of the things that shouldn’t be carried into the New Year is filling one’s shopping cart to the brim yet you are unable to foot the bill.
Supermarkets are the invention of an evil wealthy man bent on keeping everyone else in the rat race. This explains why you won’t run into Bill Gates in your local supermarket; the fact that he is thousands of miles away also contributes but there’s no running away from the fact that he is avoiding the rat race by not going to one. The thing is that supermarkets line up items so seductively that even if you only walked to get just one item, chances are a light-bulb will go off in your head (or a roach will change position, depending on whose head we are talking about) and then you’ll suddenly reach for more items. Before you know it, your cart is full. You’ll then smile sheepishly as you have to reduce the items at the exit counter after the amiable lady tells you you owe the supermarket Shs 100,000 more than your monthly rent.