How to make 2009 the best year

Barry Ronge says forget the gym, and I can see where he is coming from. In my view, the most important decision you can make - seruiously - is to honor a commitment to take care of the health of your body. If you can do that, everything else falls into place. If you take care of yourself you're more inclined to care about the environment and everything else, and vice versa.

clipped from www.thetimes.co.za Christmas is past. The delight (or otherwise) over our presents is morphing into anxiety about the lurking credit card bills, but before that hurdle is faced, we have the New Year celebrations and the tradition of making resolutions. It’s not a bad custom. There is a sort of pause at the end of the year, a lull when we have a little more time to consider our lives, define goals, set targets and nurture hopes for what lies ahead. That is comforting, even if it does nothing more than strengthen our illusion that we are actually in charge of what happens to us. Mostly, these resolutions deal with the small stuff. “I have to smoke less” is a perennial favourite, as is “I have to start putting some money away, a nest egg, in case of an emergency”. One of the most pervasive resolutions is “I’m going to take gym seriously and I must lose 20kg.”