So, it’s March. You know what that means: You’ve given up on that stupid resolution you swore to keep in January. The YMCA is finally down to “normal” levels of utilization, local gym owners are giggling as they tally the receipts for all those annual memberships that got used for three weeks, and the Frito-Lay guy can breathe easier as demand for his wares steadily creeps back up.

But maybe I haven’t touched on your pledge. Perhaps you cut up all your credit cards, in which case March is when you’ll be calling Capital One to ask for a replacement, claiming you “lost” the old one. Or perhaps March is when you start tossing McDonald’s bags onto the floorboard of your car again. Or stop reading bedtime stories to your pet fish. Or quit bringing in your Chinese-made American flag every night to show you respect the Stars and Stripes. It is kinda chilly out there, after all.

One of my points is, and I don’t want to have to be the one to tell you all this, but sorry, buddy: You’ve got the willpower of a jellyfish.

While you sit there reading this, enjoying your cigarette, doughnut, and fatty meal, your resting heart rate is climbing toward parity with my own. You’re disillusioned, and some distant part of your brain wonders if, just maybe, you’ve failed in some way.

Don’t worry, though. You’ll talk yourself out of such belief, assuming you haven’t already.

See, this is what March is really about: convincing yourself that failure isn’t your fault. Maybe you’ve argued that you deserve to indulge. The world has dealt you a lousy hand of cards, so you’ve cashed yourself in for another round of your favorite vice. That, after all, will teach the world a thing or two. Stupid world, with its lousy hands and cold, cold heart.

Or perhaps you’ve argued that your vice simply isn’t so bad. Sure, heroin is frowned upon, but look at William S. Burroughs – he lived to be 83 on the stuff and he was a genius. Who are you to question (or resist) his drug of choice?

Me, I’ve got this resolution thing down pat. I’ve found that the best approach is to make a very vague, generalized resolution and then, later, make it more specific, once I’ve succeeded in something. I guess you could call it revisionist resolving.

Point is, while all you traditionalist resolvers are failing, I’m just hitting my stride and discovering what it is that I’ve succeeded at. Which makes me a winner, you see. And makes you … well, it makes you pretty much whatever you were back in December.