NO new-year resolutions for me in 2011. After years of thinking of myself as some sort of "renovator's opportunity" DIY project and inevitably finishing up way behind schedule and over budget, I'm taking another course.
If, in three decades of adult life, I haven't been able to make any significant personal improvements, I reckon it's too late now.
This year, I've decided instead to acknowledge everything about me that - no matter how much time, energy and money I invest - will never change.
This is my last hope. If I accept my true nature as a deeply flawed individual, I may just find peace in this lifetime. So, here goes:
I will never be thin. Even at my thinnest, I was fat - and that's because, whether I'm wearing a size 12 or a size 16, as long as Natalie Portman and Portia de Rossi still walk the earth, I'm enormous.
The news is in that Natalie is pregnant and will get a tiny bit bigger, but after she gives birth she will be even thinner than before because, as she will no doubt tell us, she's breast-feeding and can't gain an ounce.
There's only one consolation. I suspect that Portia still thinks she's fat, even though she told Oprah she's beaten her eating disorder and is now a "happy and healthy" weight. (In LA, this is code for "enormous".)
Oprah has enough money not to worry so much about her size these days. So this leaves me fatter than Natalie, poorer than Oprah and marginally happier than Portia. This is about the best I will ever manage.
I will always hate exercise. I've never experienced the "feel good" endorphins that are supposedly released when you flog yourself into a sweat on the treadmill. Apparently these chemicals, along with adrenalin, serotonin and dopamine, mask pain (!) and get you high.
I now realise that I was born without this particular brain function. Those cheery chemicals are released in my body only when I drink.
I'll never stop drinking. This is a given. I give up trying to give up.
My house will never be tidy. I've long nurtured the fantasy of kitchen benches free of the detritus of family life - dumped keys, sunglasses, unopened mail, homework, school notes, sticky, eggy plates and cartons of rancid milk.
If I do manage to achieve the nirvana of a spotless bench, it will be a joyous moment, although fleeting, because I will instantly note that the floor needs sweeping.
Likewise, the laundry basket will never be empty, the dishwasher will always be full and when I look out my kitchen window, I will inevitably spot a cobweb.
The thing to keep in view is that one day my children will leave home and I'll weep with sadness over my tidy bench.
I will always lose receipts for big household items. I can pin them to the corkboard, file them, even staple them to my arm. No matter. When the item breaks, the receipt will mysteriously disappear, along with its instruction manual and warranty.
I am destined never to be able to return a faulty item or have it repaired for free. Que sera, sera.
It doesn't matter how carefully I manage my personal finances, my friends will always have cheaper private health insurance, power bills and bank fees than me. They will tell me, in great detail, of their wisdom and good fortune.
There's a level of personal grooming that I will never attain. Even though I spend hours of preparation on my hair, outfit, nails and accessories, I always register that the woman standing next to me looks effortlessly flawless while I feel like a patchwork quilt thrown over an unmade bed.
I've felt like this since I was eight years old. I'm betting Oprah, Natalie and Portia have too.
Compared with Stephen Fry, I'll always be an idiot. Most of us will. He's what's known as a "polymath", (sadly, I had to look that up). It means he's a Renaissance man, a brainbox educated in a wide variety of subjects, an author, wit, scholar and raconteur.
Inspired by the divine Mr Fry, I have tried mastering chess, speaking French and Latin, reading classic literature, studying ancient history and listening to opera.
However, I haven't managed to put the knowledge I've gained into any coherent order. It's been like chucking rocks down a dark, deep well, and any nuggets of information I have gathered are now irretrievable.
Sometimes you have to bow down to genius, so it's heartening to know that Stephen Fry reckons he feels inadequate when he stands next to J. K. Rowling.
I'll never be J. K. Rowling either. Enough said.
I'd like to be demure and ladylike. Perhaps a bit more Olivia Newton-John-ish. But, truth is, I'm more Wendy Harmer-like. I'm loud and say dumb things at the wrong time. I regret it when I've said something really inane, but I'm not sure how to stop.
However, when Stephen Fry wrote on Twitter: "God I'm stupid sometimes. What an arse I am", it made me feel better. The only thing I can say is that I now have an affinity with people who are as foolish as me. Is this progress? I can only hope so.
So, given this list of my personal failings, what's left for me to work on? Not much, I'm afraid.
Luckily I'm just smart enough to have discovered the inspirational writings of the great and wise Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antonius (AD 121-180), who said: "Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it."And so I tumble into 2011. Maybe I'll never be better than I am now, but hopefully I'll be happier.
And, in pursuit of that fine cause, I raise a drink and wish you a happy New Year.
Wendy Harmer is an author, a broadcaster and a mother and we thank her for writing this, give her all the credit and cudous for saying so humourously what we all secretly were thinking!
