Each year, I assiduously compile my own personal list of top 10 to do or change about my miserable life. And scarcely does January turn the corner before I realize that I have broken most of them.

However, this year I have set a more realistic list for myself. For one thing, it spans both my personal and professional lives. For another, it is only an 8-item list. Thirdly, it is the right blend of the aspirational and the real. Take a peek. Maybe you’ll see a reflection of your life somewhere…

I will stop drinking, stop smoking and stop doing those little things that bring joy to my otherwise drab life.

I will start exercising. However, I will have to get up at some unearthly hour before my brain figures out what I’m doing. Alternatively, I will re-join the pricey health club that I joined last year, same time. This year however, I will show up!

I will stay off deep-fried, buttered, creamed, grilled and baked delicacies. I will oust the position of pride that meat has in my diet and will steer clear of frozen nut and butter delights! Sob! After all this, coupled with the exercise, I might just get to die really, really healthy.

I will reply to all e-mails that come my way. Even offers from vague, African individuals promising me a 20% of the under-the-table millions that their dictators hid away and which, they want me to claim by proving that I’m the long-lost descendant of some long-dead flower child engineer called Robert Brooks.

I will not let my work play ping pong with my life, tripping me when I least expect it to and roaring with laughter when I have my face in the mud and my confidence a 100 feet below rock bottom and digging. I will get myself steel-toed footwear.

I will develop my psychic abilities to include mind reading, telepathy, telekinesis, and crystal ball gazing. I will need to do so just to survive. Ever evolving KRAs now expect me to predict the needs of my reporting authorities and to act accordingly.

I will not let the powers that be intimidate me. When one of them passes me by, I will attempt to carefully go weak in the knees and not visibly shiver. Alternatively, I will try and not inconvenience any of them by steering clear of their regular prowling areas.

Last, but not the least, I will try and ensure, in my own small way that I am paid for the work that I do. (It would be greater still if the payment could come on time. But dare I hope…?)