Ok, now that all of those privilege days and school holidays are out-of-the-way, we are finally ready to knuckle down to the business of 2012, commencing in earnest this January 9th. I don’t know about you, but I always have a better feeling about entering an even-numbered year as opposed to an odd-numbered equivalent. If we don’t ignore the naysayers, heaven help us all when 2013 comes around – sure we probably wont get out of the bed at all for fear of something terrible happening to us.
The great thing about starting a new year is that you have the two-week period over the extended Christmas holidays to mull over the things that went wrong last year and how you are going to rectify all those shortcomings in the current year. As we grow older these 12 month revolutions come around with ever-increasing rapidity so much so that experience has thought us never to implement a new plan on Jan 1 – always better to let a few days go by before killing yourself with the guilt ridden denial of new year deprivations.
What have we got to look forward to in 2012 ? Well lots actually – Alcohol Ban (mandatory for January at any rate), Cigarette Ban (they cause cancer and cost a fortune, so that’s a no-brainer), 30 Pound weight-loss Plan (2 pounds a week for 15 weeks, eazee-peezee), New Savings Plan (time to buy those fancy Euro savings cans from the Eurostore – they can only be opened with a can opener !), Pay Down Debt (take even more of your hard-earned cash out of the Irish Economy), New Job (we would say that wouldn’t we ?), New Business Venture (oodles of new companies being registered every day in Ireland at the moment, which augurs well for the resilience of entrepreneurial spirit out there at the moment), New Bank (because new customers get all the special offers), Man City wining the Premiership (oh no, please Ivan, no), Another Leinster Heineken Cup (after an epic Leinster-Munster final), G-Mac winning The Irish Open in his home town (in Royal Portrush for the first time since 1951) and finally, but not exhaustively, Ireland winning the Euros in Poland/ Ukraine (now there’s a dream for Giovanni and the boys in Green).
Wow, I didn’t realise we had so many great things going on in 2012. Having spent the last four years strangled in the grip of recession, the doom merchants have us all assigned to a 10 year austerity bin, but as long as we are alive, we are in a position to do something positive about our situation-analysis. Let the good times roll.