The first secret to making successful New Year’s resolutions is the same piece of wisdom I employ for confronting most of life’s problems: lower your standards. of sloth and tackle those kitchen renovations. You will hit the gym and exercise away the years of beer, pretzels and Cheezie-Weezies to produce the godlike form that lies under that overcoat of flab. You will finish that set of TeachYourself-Spanish-in-Thirty-Days tapes and dazzle the waitress at the Mexican restaurant with your pronunciation of “Puedo tener la salsa extra con mi enchiladas por favor?” The ballroom dancing lessons that every year you promised your wife you would take—as soon as that twinge in your knee cleared up—will finally be undertaken and your interpretation of
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the tango will be so intensely passionate that women in the audience will sigh and go wobbly in the knees, especially the waitress from the Mexican restaurant. Or so you say to yourself on December 31. By January 7 you will be wiping the Fudgee-Wudgee crumbs from your lips with a cocktail napkin that has vaguely familiar hand-writing on it. That twinge in your knee hasn’t gone away so there is no use driving all that distance to the gym. Your wife is in the half-renovated kitchen looking up discount divorce lawyers on her cell phone. And as you lift your fourth carbonated beverage to