Forget resolutions – it’s all about personal solutions!

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

Bluuuurgh … this is hard. By the time you read this, you’ll be well clear of the fug and blear of Christmas excess, but today is my first day back at work and I find myself forced to sit almost a foot away from the edge of my desk, as the giant tin of Belgian biscuits I snarfed over the feast metamorphoses into a mountain of midriff bulge.

Unsure exactly how many we were going to have over Christmas, I shopped for the maximum possible amount of guests, and then there were none, leaving myself and the Snapper to work our way through an obscene amount of chocolate, cheese, wine and decadent desserts.

With my swollen belly pushing me away from my work, my addled hungover brain finds comfort in rounding up hundreds of thoughts of little consequence, which it then sends spinning around and around my mental mulberry bush, in no particular order.

All around there is the usual guff being spouted about New Year Resolutions, yet I cannot think of a worse time to take a serious look at life. We are hairy mammals who should be spending these dark months sleeping 18 hours a day, waking only to guzzle high-fat foods and watch the soaps. Instead, every Winter, we put ourselves through one of the busiest and most stressful periods of the calendar.

Much as I love the thought of improving myself, setting targets to drop that, stop this and take on a lot more of the other, I think I’ll leave the major lifestyle changes for a sunny day in April.

Were I to take a long hard look in the deep dark truthful mirror today, and see the physical wretch I’ve become, I wouldn’t trust any major decisions my feeble mind made.

All I want to do is crawl back into bed and catch up with my natural instincts, but I can’t, as I have to earn a living, so instead I’m going to continue being self-indulgent.

The first bit of weight I’m choosing to lose are the letters R and E, taken from resolutions, leaving me with the far more positive outcome: solutions.

Sorry, colyoomistas, I’m not about to solve the world’s problems. Not this week, anyway.

In fact, solutions might be too grand a word for what I have in mind, which is simply to make myself feel better by suggesting a few minor changes to my First World existence, while giving thanks that I have the luxury of worrying about such insignificant things.

To read Charlie’s colum in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.