1. Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits.  ~Author Unknown
2. Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it’s twice as onerous a duty. ¬†~John Selden
3. Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.  ~Oprah Winfrey
4. Every man should be born again on the first day of January.  Start with a fresh page.  Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.  ~Henry Ward Beecher
5. New Year’s Day: ¬†Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. ¬†Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. ¬†~Mark Twain
6. Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.  ~Oscar Wilde
7. But can one stillmake resolutions when one is over forty?  I live according to twenty-year-old habits.  ~Andre Gide
8. It wouldn’t be New Year’s if I didn’t have regrets. ¬†~William Thomas
9. May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions. ¬†~Joey Adams
10. He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool. ~F.M. Knowles
11. I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s. ¬†~Henry Moore
12. Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year.  Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.  ~Thomas Mann
13. I made no resolutions for the New Year.  The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.  ~Anaïs Nin

So we are sensitized to take a look back; yes look back at ourselves. I realty am highly appreciative of the great job this brain-washing has done; something all the other sermons could not make the lethargic, lazy and reluctant individual do. Every culture and faith has festivals with the same ethos but Christmas cheer’s reverberations are unique. Even a nasty guy like me feels like being kind for a change.

So I am looking back. And I am unhappy. My heart is heavy for all the regrets it carries.  With passing years I have slowly and with certainty realized the uselessness of being virtuous. All those times when I had the opportunity but decided to be the gentleman. Do you think I am remembered for those acts; yes I am but as a lacl-lustre guy without charm or spine. And this is what I am regretting about. All the things I should have done and did not do. Not that I had the opportunity always anyway!

Our great poet Ghalib put it so well when he said
“Oh, Lord, it is not the sins that I have committed that I regret, but those which I have had no opportunity to commit.”

Yet, when I look back, I notice I have gradually slipped out of my stuffed shirt and the nice guy image I have been trying to impart. I don’t think I fooled anyone though. But this year I danced in the rain with my daughter and rolled in the dirt. I told all ladies who would listen to me that they were pretty and charming without meaning any of it. I spent time looking up other people. With some I unburdened myself by telling them what I thought of them so ambiguities did not remain between us; may the Lord forgive me for this break of the Ten Commandments. It was fun and I have really no regrets. I resolve to continue in my wayward ways.

I have only one aim now: to die without any regrets hanging over my spirit. I have absolutely no wish to remain down here as a disturbed unsresolved ghost hankering over unfinished business.