New Year Resolution

Neighbor's Neighbor
I stopped making resolutions years ago, just kept doing what needed to be done, resolutions be damned!
Why do lame things during the year, then regret for a day, resolve not to do them but start doing them anyway in a couple of days? Why choose New Year to resolve why not your very own birthday to turn over a new leaf? Alternatively, Easter, Christmas, or any other day that you decide to be free of an overbearing weight on your soul, that is if something called soul exists.
Once when I was a small boy I decided that I would not lie to get toffees, this in itself was a lie because I got a chocolate for saying it aloud. My mind was working overtime like a clock thereafter to find things to makeup and say for getting items I liked to eat.
Many a time I have resolved that I would not come out of whichever room I had locked myself in after a fight with my brother or mother, father never fought with me, his directives were scrupulously followed to ensure fitness of all things dear to me and my person. The resolve had to be made strategically so that at least a couple of hours were available until the next meal. The moment odors from the kitchen started wafting in; I had superman’s sense of smell; the resolve would melt like butter in a hot frying pan! My mother knew that and would purposely won’t hail me for the meal making me miserable forcing me to crawl to the dining table sheepishly to join the conversation as if nothing had happened.
Then came a time when I did miserably in a class test in grade 6, I was recovering after a prolonged bout of typhoid, its ghastly relapse, lousy prescription diet, and the lingering after taste of capsules. I was rattled by my brother when he pointed out that I had been bed ridden and had all the time to study for the test. I locked myself, this time in his room, and wept with copious tears as even though I could sense the heavenly odors from the kitchen my stomach was turning turtles at the mere thought of food. I slunk out of his room in to mine, waited for my soup to be brought by mother and decided to study whenever I would be unhappy, angry, hungry, or feeling deep in to the woods. A habit which did good to me, as I did well in studies, and top my friends because I grew up to be a strong six footer and they got saved from my wrath! This habit I have carried with me though I do not remember the date now.
Initially when I got married, I used to get up just 30 minutes before I had to leave home for work, all routines were completed at speed of light, much to the annoyance of my newly wedded wife. She was more used to a household where the patriarch woke up at least five hours before leaving for work. She was therefore, was at a loss when faced with a hurricane of activities which preceded my departure. However once we had children, I decided to get up early, essentially to get some ‘me’ time. I have forgotten the day this habit sprouted, it remains with me even now when the children are long settled in their own families. Incidentally, I get up at least half an hour before the time, my wife tells me her father used to get up. They say daughter in laws turn in to mother in-laws as they age, at least on one single count I have not only become my father in law but bettered his record too.
Friends used to ask pointedly about New Year resolutions in the first week of January and some reply had to be given to them, which led to many different resolutions being ascribed to me as I used to forget what I had told the last person who had inquired. I never flinched, as I never intended to keep any of those resolutions.
Along the long and tiresome journey of the past seventy years, I had decided never to harm any being by my actions, and this has become a beacon guiding my life’s journey as I stumble along from one year to the next.
This New Year’s Eve I have resolved “To Kill”.
I had to take this hard line as things are getting out of hand and not much time is left for me to see Homo sapiens stop killing each other. I have decided to kill hatred with whatever means I can, I have decided to begin by giving a hug to anyone who has time and inclination, cast, creed, religion, sex, age, no bar. The resolution to kill hatred was to begin by accepting pleadings of my neighbor for the inaugural hug, unfortunately my wife persuaded me to grant this favor to our neighbor’s neighbor! You see our neighbor is a widow in her fifties and her neighbor is a scabby old man of eighty-five.
This year would be spent in hugging out hate as will the next year. I already like this resolution.