Last year I wrote an article for M Magazine in which I asked a number of blokes about their thoughts on New Year’s Resolutions.

This year, free of all editorial constraints, I decided to go a different route and inject you with a healthy dose of realism. By realism I mean ‘tell you where you and your choices suck’, like I did when I wrote my 7 Reasons Why New Years Eve Parties In Malta Either Suck, Or Blow. It’s not that I want to piss on your proverbial bonfire at all, it’s just that these are 5 New Year’s Resolutions you’ll never keep.

1: Lose weight

Probably the most popular of all New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight, which is not the same as ‘to loose weight‘, which is both incorrect and conjures up disgustingly flabby images. Needless to say, New Year’s is the worst time to make this decision. For a start, you haven’t enjoyed so much hearty food since this time last year, which makes it even harder to get started. Second, it’s the toughest time all year round to start exercising, what with less daylight hours and whatnot. And third, not only is convincing yourself to get off the sofa and move around tougher than ever around these months, it’s also the toughest time to actually warm your body up in order to get that fat a-burning. Plus, if you go for a run, you get back home with a river of snot streaming down your face, which will certainly not help your ‘feel good cause’. So stop freaking out for now, let that heavy coat cover your supposed heaviness and let the panic wait until May.

You too can wear your Mum's pregnant pants and own this look of satisfaction!

2: Stop smoking

Quitting the fags is also a very popular New Year’s resolution, for reasons which I can both understand and also not quite fathom. I can understand why one would want to quit smoking, but I don’t know why anyone would try to kickstart this new way of life on the night when a cigarette is most acceptable and agreeable. Listen, even with the hangover and raspy throat you’re gonna wake up with on New Year’s Day, a cigarette will still be the one thing you crave most, so you’re just making it harder on yourself to quit. Oh, and if you decide to quit smoking at midnight, while with a half smoked fag in one hand and a drink in the other, your resolution is automatically moot and set to fail. Unless your self control happens to go by the name Bear Grylls that is.

I know what you're doing there, and that's definitely not what I would call 'quitting smoking''.

3: Stop drinking

Much like smoking, only even more socially acceptable. Listen, for the past few weeks you’ve been drinking more than you have all year round. You’ve had drinks with your mum, drinks with your baby sister, even socially sanctioned drinks with your boss at the office. And now you say you want to quit drinking? Well I’m sorry, but your body will respond to this with a loud and violent ‘No’. Oh and also, after a long hard day at the office, when you’re back in the relatively freezing comfort of your Maltese house, can you tell me what will warm you up best between a) a gas heater, b) your air conditioner set on ‘heat’, and c) a glass of red, a shot of that 18 year old Scotch you got for Christmas and a generous tot of Cognac. Thought so.

And if you decide to stop drinking while at one of these parties, you're a pretentious spineless douche who deserves to be dragged out and have his knees broken with a 5 kilo ice cube bag.

4: Save money

Wow, that’s a bit rich innit? Have you any idea how much you spent on Christmas presents, food, fuel, booze, tickets for parties and new clothes in the past few weeks? Oh, and remind me, when did you last get paid? That’s right, probably a full week ago. And your next paycheck is not in at least 5 weeks. And you’ve already blown the cash Christmas presents you got. So what exactly did you intend to start saving with? Oh, so you did mean that in an ironic, post-modern sort of way. Riiight.

5: Get a better job

Listen, we get it, we honestly do. Your life sucks, you hate your life, your job is bullshit and this is not what you set out to do. We feel you. Thing is though, at least 275,289,084 other people feel exactly the same way you do right now, and even more will start to think so as the clock nears 12 tonight. It’s perfectly natural to feel like you’re in a rut, especially if you are in one.

Problem is, come January, when you start to make gentle enquiries with the ultimate purveyors of pipe dreams and fantasies, that is to say job recruitment agencies, thousands have already done so too. And few people will leave their job in January because hey, everyone’s fucking broke and it’s really bad mojo to start the year on an uncertain footing. So there will be no jobs for you to have. So you stay in your current job, unhappy as ever, until a couple of interviews open up in March and you don’t even show up for them, because you were blind drunk when you decided you wanted to change your life and weren’t even totally certain that you were alive at all.

This is you going to the bathroom on New Year's Eve. And you're telling me that you want to change your life?