Read this before making any resolution

You have had a whole day, yesterday, to recover from the 2015 – 2016 transition of Thursday night. And you have a whole day, before the reality of the first Monday hits you like being run over by a lunatic train. In short, this is the perfect time to make your New Year resolutions.

First of all, you have to remember that your body is a vessel – whether a temple of the Lord or a bleach experiment like some of our local socialites – it doesn’t matter.

What you have got to remember is to make a resolution to take care of it better, because it is all you have got to carry you through this lifetime. If you have ever travelled on an aero-plane, subdued by the monotony of the drone of the engines with a ‘hot’ NAS meal in front of you, you feel secure as the air-hostesses roll their trolleys through the aisle, and if on a long haul journey, are absorbed by whatever in-flight movie you are watching (unless, of course, it is about a plane crash or something, but no airline has ‘Flight 57’ on its movie menu).

The truth though, is, there is always the remote possibility of terrorists in that seat across the aisle. Or mechanical failure! And what literally stands between you and a chilly 30,000 drop into the ocean, the Sahara, the sea or some random savanna is a wall of thin steel and that cheerfully creaking plastic that constitutes an aircraft.

Your body is the same. It could let in enemies, or fall apart without warning any time, whatever your age. So make a resolution to help your vessel of bone and thin skin fly you through life. Strap your seat belt, strap up for sex, lose weight on the jog, and if need be, build up your weight.

Eat right and drink in moderation, if one really must. Let that ‘airplane’ of yours now spend more time settled in familiar home airports, like close family and a few friends, not flying off to bars in Brno and getting lost with ‘clandes,’ (like a Kenyan student who goes off to study in Chandigarh, drops out and the last sighting of them was they were ambulating in a place in India called Ambala). Don’t be a ‘mtu wa balaa’ (troublesome person).

Finish off last year’s personal and professional projects – for me it is a long novel we’ve been dancing around with for two years, for you it might be a small construction or that song to record, or marriage.

It does not matter! When done with that, make 2016 a year to learn something new. For me it is driving and a new language (German), for you it may be a recipe, salsa, siasa for 2017 or that Master’s degree. Again, no matter, just acquire a new skill set, or have an adventure before the year is through.

That does not mean sneaking off to Morabad to pick up some badass ‘moran’ skills, before crossing over to Ramadi to become a jihadi bride. Keep your resolutions sane. Do not be in extremis. Happy New Year.

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