1) You haven't reached fitness and weight loss goals, but you have walked the dog or yourself this year. Extra points for keeping the kilos low enough to avoid breaking furniture.
2) Your family has been fed consistently (more or less) the past 12 months. Some of those meals have been carefully crafted from scratch using time-honoured traditions of online recipes or a meal prep kit. Other repasts feature Turkish takeaways on the beach or sausages fried in a pan instead of on the barbecue because the gas cylinder was either empty or the knob refused to turn without an act of Parliament or a liberal spray of CRC, which you can't find.
3) You haven't quit cigarettes, but you're thinking really hard about it. Mark Twain said giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. "I know because I've done it thousands of times." Plaster your upper arms with nicotine patches as a conversation starter. Extra points if, unlike many human chimneys I've spotted in Tauranga traffic queues, you refrain from flicking butts out the car window. The world is not your ashtray, buster. Next time, a photo of your number plate will feature on Instagram.
4) You haven't won awards or a promotion this year at work, but you haven't been fired, either. Men: bonus points for not displaying your genitals at the office (this ancient custom does not appear to have caught on among women). Congratulations for your restraint if you've resisted the temptation to grope colleagues or make sexual advances towards subordinates.
5) You forgot to schedule a couple's retreat this year, and there's been painfully little soul-to-soul happening in your relationship. However, you and your beloved are still living under one roof and neither of you is stuffed into a body bag or portioned into vacuum-sealed pouches in the freezer. Bonus points if your significant other hasn't left the region under the pretext of career advancement.
6) You have, in fact, learned a new skill. Perhaps you've taken up te reo Maori or woodworking. Or, like me, you've become a keen gardener, meaning I mow dandelions before their stalks grow to resemble gangly aliens, along with clover which comprises 80 per cent of what I jokingly call "the grass". I've also become adept at paying landscapers who own tall ladders, a trailer and buzzing chainsaw to cut away dead parts of trees. Maybe 2018 will be the year I learn to wield a chainsaw myself. It looks like fun.
7) You haven't socked away thousands of extra dollars for that holiday next year, but your weekly $20 Lotto habit has cost around a thousand bucks the past 12 months. It's like your own personal savings plan – for the government. Bonus points if you can still pay extortionate rent or a fat mortgage without moonlighting as a pole dancer following your welding job (wait, that was Flashdance, a 1983 American romantic drama starring Jennifer Beals, who still looks stunning).
8) You dramatically cut alcohol consumption by switching to 2 per cent beer for two weeks before deciding life's too short to deny yourself high-octane craft beer. Herman Melville, in Moby Dick wrote, "Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian". I'm not sure what that means, but it's an interesting proposition.
9) You stopped meditating when that 10-day free app trial (that took six months to complete) ended. Because you lack extra brain training, give yourself kudos for not swearing like a sailor during major DIY like rewiring your home's electrical system, restoring an early Kiwi pioneer wagon known as a caravan or replacing the toilet roll. You've achieved a Zen state of mind, even under pressure.
10) Your children haven't netted a Nobel Prize, Ivy League scholarship or school attendance awards. But they have steered clear of the principal's office; they're not selling garden herbs masquerading as marijuana; or running a gambling ring at morning tea time.
Well done. We've nearly survived another year. It's not really the end; not the beginning, either- just a continuation of the to-do list that will never quite be done.
