This is not a New Year's resolution

For the last few months leading to 2012, I have been slacking with my workouts and diets. The consequences are dismal: I have gained four kilograms of weight. At first I tried to rationalize that it was some serious muscles that I had been packing on. But the self-delusion failed once I was back at the gym, in front of the mirror, lamenting that my hard-earned “4-packs” are losing their definitions, and excess “nutrients” are occupying my waist, hips and thighs, the same way protesters are occupying Wall Street, Moscow and Central. Also I am not lifting heavier weights either: I can't even finish three 6-rep sets of 50-pound dumbbell chest press. It used to be a catwalk. And a regular full-body routine totally kicked my rear end yesterday, leaving me sore all over today, and I will walk funny for at least 3 days.

I will also be on the naughty list for shirking my reading and writing sessions, especially for a Junot Diaz wannabe who registered for a domain of his own name before writing ANYTHING. My last blog entry was three months ago. And my writing skills, which I have never been proud of, got even rustier: I struggled with the first sentence of this blog for half an hour because I wasn't sure whether it is “slacking in” or “slacking with”. I settled with the latter after some googling.

A glooming pile of months' worth of the Economist and Time are staring right at me at this very moment. This weekend I picked up some of them with me when I went out for meals not because I really cared about the Republican presidential debates or the Euro Crisis or the Arab Spring. I tried to read them just to ease my financial guilt: these shiny babies ain't cheap, you know. By the way it is a real relief when my two-year affair with the Economist, the smart people's magazine, was finally over. It has been a real burden to catch up with all the tiring minutia of what is going on all over the world week after week after week, and after week. Or maybe I am not smart enough.

Exercising, reading and writing, the only proper hobbies of mine, are all penalizing me for my lack of discipline and commitment. Which begs the question: so what the heck have I been doing for the past quarter?

To be honest with you, my dear diary, my day job has been a much bigger bitch than I had expected. At first it was just people. Every time I felt slighted, unappreciated, rejected and downright depressed - not necessarily in that order - I tried to suck it up, count my blessings and, in my mother's words, just “do it for money's sake”. Then it was I that started screwing things up, which worsened all the prejudice, if prejudice isn't too strong a word, which made me more jittery and more prone to mistakes, which furthers lowers my self-esteem, which made me more unsociable. And the vicious cycle repeats itself. Sometimes it confused me why those who used to be cool with me suddenly decided to have nothing to do with me. Yeah I should add “abandoned” to the list of things I felt. But I don't blame them at all. It was my own doing. Disappointing people has been my strong suit ever since I was a child, anyway!

Many people treat the beginning of a new year as some life-changing event. Well, I don't. I know if my 2011 sucks, chances are my 2012 is going to suck too. Some veteran writers advise against blogging when you are feeling too negative. It makes sense to some extent. As the saying goes, “When you laugh, the world laughs with you; when you cry, you cry alone.” However if I am all positive I will not be writing in the first place – my time will be better spent on, say, philandering.

At least I am still joking. Guess things ain't that bad.