[Note: In honor of New Year's, here's one of my seasonal radio pieces from the archives - it first aired Friday 12/28/01 on WFPL Louisville, KY.]

As you know, New Year’s is coming, and with it, the dreaded resolution cycle.The cycle works like this: Two months of resolve are followed by a month of guilt and shame for failing to keep said resolve. By April Fools’ Day, we’re steeped in failure.

Shortly thereafter follows nine months of blissful amnesia until we start the cycle over again next January 1st.

I learned about the resolution cycle last year when I joined a gym. The first time I arrived to work out after New Year’s Day, there were no parking spaces.

Inside, every treadmill, elliptical trainer, stair climber and reclining cycle was occupied by a sweating body in some rainbow color. It was like an explosion in a paint factory, with the sprinklers on.

“What’s goin’ on?” I said to the woman behind the counter.

“New Year’s,” she said, handing me the last clean towel. Unless I snapped it at someone racing me for a treadmill, it wasn’t going to be used. The only exercise I got was walking all the way back to my car.

But by March first, there were plenty of spaces. Normal life, with its petty disappointments, guilt and shame, had returned.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why are we so eager for self-improvement, when self-improvement is so eager to crush us?

And why do we pick such meager resolutions?

A few months ago some friends and I discussed what we could do to improve.

“I should spend more time with my family,” one said.

“I should exercise more,” came one inevitable answer.

“I should recycle.”

It seems to me that as long as we’re going to suffer March’s shame anyway, we should think bigger.

“I should qualify for the U.S. Olympic Swim team.”

“I should cure cancer.”

“I should sell my house and walk from Tierra Del Fuego to Homer, Alaska.”

Let’s set ourselves up for grand failures. Or, if you don’t feel like doing that, celebrate your small failures now.

Why wait until March? Even better, turn your failures into successes.

Here are some of my resolutions:

“I resolve not to treat my body better, because I already take great care of it. I feed it all it wants, whenever it wants.”

“I resolve not to work on procrastination, because, first, that would be an oxymoron, and second, I don’t feel like it.”

“I resolve not to remember things any better than I did last year. I resolve not to remember things any better than I did last year.”

Oh, I said that already.

Finally, next year, I resolve to write that novel at last, just as soon as I solve global warming.