Pre-packaged New Years resolutions

To aid you as you spend hours deliberating as to what your News Years resolutions will be this time around I have come up with some you are free to use and quote as your own.

I will take responsibility for my own actions - currently one of society's big problems is a general lack of personal responsibility. It's amazing how often and how easily 'the government', 'the system','the media' etc are blamed for anything negative that takes place in the lives of people. Somehow we have come to expect everything to be done for us. Where did this expectation come from? Surely we are empowered enough to create our own futures. Why should we accept that the control that we relinquish when relying on our governments for an environment in which we can 'prosper.' What is so bad about saying, 'I screwed up.'

I will set an example for those around me - Parents talk about how the upcoming generation are couch potatoes, who have no direction and sense of responsibility. The drinking age gets increasingly lower. Sexually transmitted diseases passed the epidemic stage a long, long time ago. Drivers lament at the bad & dangerous driving habits of taxis.
At the same time children watch their parents drink themselves into a stupor at junior school cocktail parties. Parents work long hours to ensure that they can 'keep up with the Joneses' supplying the children with all the latest gizmos to relinquish the responsibility of entertaining them. People and organisations are so aware of others sensitivities that the truths behind the spread of HIV get clouded behind all sorts of spin. Drivers refuse to obey laws they don't feel applies to them (talking on cellphones, speed limits, overtaking on a solid line).
Perhaps it's time to walk the talk.

I will force myself to think for myself - It's amazing how, now that we have so much information at your fingertips, people still do not question. We are fed lies and half truths via established media houses who are in turn fed this 'information' by corporate PR houses and government spin doctors. Let's try and expand our minds sufficiently, so that we are able to make educated judgments on what we see, read and hear ... without having to be cynical.

I will smile more - Let's look for the positive in all we encounter.