The new year is here and along with it comes its share of 'new year resolutions' that everyone makes. Its their little list to improve their lives, in areas where they feel there's scope for improvement.

Back in the college days, no one ever took these resolutions too seriously, and right enough, people actually saw who got off their resolutions first, rather than who stuck to it the longest! It was actually a list which we ticked off as each resolution flopped and had a laugh about it. Most people ran thru the list before January ended.

But apparently, failed resolutions are not a laughing matter. According to this piece that I saw in today's TOI, people are flogging themselves over not being able to keep resolutions.

Improvement in life is good. Scholars, saints, scientists, all vouch for the efficiency of constant improvement. However, we fail in 3 areas...

1. Unrealistic goals
2. Irrational goals
3. Getting way too serious about goals

Whenever, you need to set a new years resolution, you need to remember to make a change because YOU want it, and not because others want it of you, and you need to make sure that the change YOU want, is not the result of an irrational influence of popular culture. And finally, no one gets it right the first time out. Don't make your resolutions a checklist, where you cross something off if it goes wrong. Instead, let it be a path that points you back in the direction you want to be headed in.

Best of luck and a very happy new year!!!

I was recently talking to a young lady, when i felt a twitch of the nose and what followed was a full-fledged sneeze. The normal response would have been 'bless you'. Instead, I got a hard, resounding whack. Since I did manage to get my hand in place before all the air in the lungs burst loose, I was a bit bewildered about the stout reprimand. "You were thinking of sex!" was the response.

Research has done it again. Gone are the days when people talked of the heart stopping while you sneezed and hence, 'bless you' was the response (since you got back to life!). Today, you've got all the more reason to watch that truant nose when in the company of the opposite sex.

Now the researcher was kind enough to mention that this is the case only with 'some individuals,' our constant need for generalisation gets the better of us and we usually use the 'findings' of this research as and how it pleases us.

Generalisations in such researches is good for a few laughs, but can be a bit dangerous when you consider hardcore medical research. It often leads to a lot of confusion over what is the right research to follow. In case you follow medical research in papers or other media, you might want to look at this article to help you figure out what the hell are these researchers talking about!

As for the young lady, I just waited until she sneezed and the joke was on her.