By JENERALI ULIMWENGU

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I guess many people my age or thereabouts have long given up on what we used to call New Year resolutions. These were solemn commitments we used to make to ourselves and whoever cared to listen. We would then embark to do things differently than we had been doing.

These were — I guess for some are still — pious wishes to change our ways, to become a bit better than we were in the past, to do well, cast off this or that other unacceptable behaviour which has caused us some grief.

What used to intrigue me with these wishes was the circumstances in which they were made. Usually it would be around December 31, when many of those making these solemn statements would have been on a week of overeating and overdrinking, and generally behaving badly.

Someone who has been drinking heavily since Christmas eve and has literally been running on alcohol like an engine that is powered by diesel, suddenly stands up before his company of ‘good fellows’ and swears that the drink he has imbibed that night will be his last, and very few in the room will believe him. And sure enough, in the afternoon of January 1, he is spotted in his favourite watering hole trying to kill the hangover from the previous night.

This is in no way suggesting that such resolutions have all been in vain, or that those making them do so because of the high levels of inebriation, though I tend to agree with William Shakespeare over what games drink can play with you, by provoking you with the desire but taking away the performance (Macbeth).

No, not all New Year resolutions are empty promises to oneself. They can actually be taken to represent deep reflection and firm resolve.

I know people in Nairobi who used to drown themselves in so-called good times but once their minds were made up, they kicked the habit and went dry. One rose to become president, the other still writes for the Daily Nation, a distinguished manipulator of the Queen’s language. I suspect the two took that drastic step on days like these.

A resolution to do things or to stop doing things denotes planning.

If you embark on a new year without thinking about it, you could be going down the years without thinking at all about what the years you have lived have meant, and what the coming ones may mean as you inch forward to what has been called the ‘golden age’ without any bullion to show for it.

The wise and the prudent will approach any new 12th month with some kind of plan. Maybe the children are going to college, and the fees have never been known to go down. Maybe the family car needs replacing. Or it is about a new paint job for the old house?

Everywhere we look we see signs warning that the new year will be harder than the one just ended as the cost of living becomes unbearably high, and more people join the hordes of the jobless. And this will not be the worst year for long, because the one next and the one after that will be worse than what we will experience this year.

I know it will not help anyone if I continue a bleak picture of this year or the next. So I resolve to do just those things that I know I cannot fail to do, and for whose achievement I need not overexert myself. I mean that you can do without too much effort, like reading a good book from time to time.

It surprises me sometimes to notice how people place little value on book-reading, which is probably the least expensive pastime you can have. Drinking is so ridiculously expensive that people should have abandoned it long ago, except that people are wedded to their habits, and old habits die hard indeed.

I would suggest that we all take up book-reading as a must in the new year, and resolve to read at least one book every month. This can hardly be difficult, especially in this year, which is a leap year. February will have 29 days, and that means an extra day for reading. So, go for it and read as if your life depends on it, because it does. 

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]