New Year's time for reflection, resolution

There's an awful lot of pressure on people these days.

On top of the pressures and strains that come with the majority of everyday life, the week in between Christmas and New Year's is especially tough.

This is the week in which one is expected to come up with a resolution for the coming year — to make changes for the better, to right wrongs of previous years, to try to adjust one's lifestyle to feel more accomplished and fulfilled.

Typical resolutions include dieting to lose weight, exercising to replace flab with fab, monitoring finances more closely and even striving to accomplish a longtime goal so as to check an item off of one's "Things I Hope to Do Before I Croak" List.

These items also vary, from skydiving to reading Tolstoy's "War and Peace" all the way through to bungee jumping to doing any or all of the events sans clothing. Well, amongst adventurous folk, at least.

It's scary to be at a party, beginning the countdown to 2005, when all of a sudden a fellow reveller turns to you and asks what your resolution is, and you come up blank.

While losing sleep over the situation is not recommended, it's not so easy to come up with an answer off the cuff.

Here are a couple ready-made responses to have in your back pocket, just in case that nosey person sidles on up to you:

"Learning to flamenco dance." This is a classy answer. Not only does it suggest that you're willing to acquire a new skill, flamenco dancing is not exactly an everyday activity, so not a lot of people know quite what it is, thus avoiding a boring conversation about the questioner's own flameno dancing experiences. Downside: You may eventually be called upon to demonstrate your newfound abilities. Proceed with caution.

"Balancing my checkbook." Guaranteed to get a tiny chuckle, especially when you whip said checkbook out and place it atop your nose or forehead.

"Planning an extensive tour of …" Now here is where things get tricky, because people typically lean forward, eager to hear your destination so that they can talk about places that they've been to that are nearby, or share their own experiences. This puts us into dangerous slideshow-type waters. Best answer: Unalaska, Alaska.

"Training my guppy to talk." A conversation stopper. Use if the person is loathed. If he/she persists, explain that you are overcoming the translation barrier fantastically, and begin to make burbling noises as if you are underwater. Works great on horrid blind dates, too.

And finally, the all-time best answer, mine this year and every other year.

"This year, I resolve to stop making New Year's Resolutions."

Works every time.

Matthew Weaver is the business and agriculture reporter for the Columbia Basin Herald.