My new year resolution? Abandon new year resolutions once and for all | Moira Donegan

There are few rituals I despise more than the annual January catalog of joyless, dutiful aspirations. This year, I'm saying no

As the Christmas lights flicker off across the country and gift wrap is crumpled into trash bags the world over, we are about to collectively turn from the festive, indulgent holiday season to its more stringent coda. We are leaving the season of eat, drink and be merry, and entering an annual time of smug righteousness, virtuous self-denial and ostentatiously effortful self-discipline. Christmas is over. It is time, now, for new year resolutions.

Allow me to be blunt in saying that there are few rituals I despise more than this, the annual January catalog of joyless, dutiful aspirations. The pledges to drink less, quit smoking, save money, work more and above all to lose weight - might be neutral, even admirable, on their own. But coming, as they do, in a mass seasonal push, in the form of boasting, peer pressure and loudly advertised gym membership sales, they create what has always struck me as an oppressive opening to the new year, one heavy on self-criticism and hypocrisy and light on serious engagement with the ways we should - and can - change.