DURING our “fatty” year-end party, fellow columnist Luis Buenaflor chided me, “I thought you have gone vegetarian.”
“Just semi-vegetarian,” I laughed in self-defense. “Christmas is no season for vegetable meals.”
Well, while Christmas is over, there’s another meaty occasion – the New Year with its media noche or midnight meal.
It’s also time to write, or simply commit to memory, a New Year’s resolution. Meanwhile, let us see if we have fulfilled one for the outgoing year 2018? I have fulfilled mine – to stretch the value of my money to the max; meaning, buying cheaper but good-quality products like durable denims at ukay-ukay outlets.
If I wear a Lacoste shirt today, it’s only because refusing a branded gift is an insult to the giver.
I have survived life-threatening diseases like hypertension, atherosclerosis, emphysema and left ventricular dysfunction. My doctors had said emphysema was irreversible; my latest x-ray showed it’s gone.
As in the year about to end, I intend to stay debt-free. But for my New Year 2019 resolution, it’s to earn much more because it’s the only way to cope with new prices that increase each new year. Having learned from past difficulties in paying bills, I vow never to purchase more than what I can afford to pay. The bigger the bill and the slower it is settled, the bigger the interest!
A retired bank manager has advised me to use my credit card sparingly and prefer ATM debit card for grocery purchases. It’s simply because what’s in debit card is earned, not borrowed, money.
I have no plan to fatten my bank account though; it hardly earns minuscule interest that lags behind inflation. Extra income could be better invested in small business.
To remain sane, I don’t regret having lost heavily to casino gambling in my most productive years. No use regretting over spilt milk.
We like to think of New Year’s resolution as another Christian tradition. But it is not. The tradition of affirming a New Year’s resolution had preceded the Christian era. It began in ancient Babylon over 3,000 years ago. Does such an origin matter?
There’s really nothing spiritual that occurs at midnight of December 31. The figurative “turning a new leaf” could be done on any date.
However, if a Christian decides to make a New Year’s resolution, what should it be?
While surfing the Internet for this column, I came across a reproduction of the original 15th-century New Year’s resolution attributed to Roman Catholic Bishop John H. Vincent, which I am quoting verbatim below:
“I will this day try to live a simple, sincere and serene life, repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity and self-seeking, cultivating cheerfulness, magnanimity, charity and the habit of holy silence, exercising economy in expenditure, carefulness in conversation, diligence in appointed service, fidelity to every trust and a child-like trust in God.”
For a New Year’s resolution to succeed there must always be a strong motive. The resolution to lose weight, for instance, is always anchored on the individual’s strong desire to look attractive; to stop smoking, to live healthier and longer.
To the reader who wants my two cents’ worth, my advice is: Be realistic. Resolving to win in gambling, as in lotto by buying more tickets makes the poor poorer, since the chance of hitting the right 6/55 combination is one in 28 million.
Just be the best of whatever you are. Okay? (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
