Happy New Year!

Written by BRIAN LOCKHART

You can thank Julius Caesar and his Pagan ways for establishing January 1 as the start of each new year. 

It's as good a date as any considering the earth goes around in an orbit and any day of the year could have been established as the start of a new calendar. After all, we'll be back in the same place again a year later, no matter when you start counting the days. 

Caesar and his fun pals also established the tradition of the new year's party, although in Roman times, the parties were a usually a little wilder in ways I won't mention here.

The tradition continues of drinking, revelry, dancing on table tops, and making a lot of noise when the second hand counts down to the start of a new year – at least for some people. Others take a more subdued approach.

For some reason it has also become somewhat of a tradition to make new year's resolutions. What better way to start the new year than to make a promise to yourself you won't keep! 

A quick search revealed the top 10 most common resolutions as indicated by a poll which may or may not be scientifically accurate, but it sounds pretty close.

One: Diet or eat healthier.

Two: Exercise more.

Three: Lose weight

Four: Save more and spend less money

Five: Learn a new skill or hobby.

Six: Quit smoking

Seven: Read more

Eight: Find another job

Nine: Drink less alcohol

Ten: Spend more time with family and friends. 

I'm pretty sure number's one, two, and three, are the main reason many workout gyms stay in business. What better way to get in shape than drop a few hundred dollars on a gym membership with a vow to enter bathing suit season ripped in muscles and ready to run a marathon – or least attract a lot of members of the opposite sex. Of course that daily workout usually becomes less and less as you vow to make up the missing days on your next visit, then realize you haven't been to the gym in six months.

Number four – saving more money and spending less sounds kind of good. It would be even better if prices didn't keep going and your pay cheque didn't stay the same year after year.

Learning a new skill or hobby I think is one resolution that is very doable. If you have an interest in something give it a try. If you like it, you'll keep coming back.

Quitting smoking is a tough one for a lot of people. A good incentive, if you're a guy, would be to find a stunningly beautiful woman that likes you but tells you if you don't quit, she'll be on the next train to the international singles convention in Las Vegas looking for someone else. That would probably work the other way around as well. 

Number seven – reading more? I have trouble with this one. If you spend more time alone reading, doesn't that take time away from resolutions number one, two, three, five, eight, and ten? 

I'm not sure about number eight – finding a new job. That would only apply to people who don't like their current line of work. Are there that many people who hate their job?

Number nine – drink less alcohol. This one needs a little more context. I think this would depend entirely on if you are a glass of wine on a weekend type person, or a raging alcoholic with five DUI's on your record. 

If you're the latter, cutting down would probably be a good thing. 

And finally, spending more time with family and friends. You should be doing that already. 

After all, who else are you going to spend time with? Your enemies and people you don't like? 

Like probably everyone else, I've got a few ideas of my own I want to try in the new year but I don't call them resolutions. I prefer to think of them as personal mental notes.

If you have made some resolutions for the new year, good for you. Give it a go and do your best to carry through. 

If you fail, there's always next year.

Either way, have a good and prosperous 365 days until we arrive back here, same time, same channel, in 2020.