I have given up making any resolutions at all. The last time I looked out of my front door as the Old Year was at its last gasp it was a frost night and the stars were shining gloriously in a steel blue sky. There was a fair amount of traffic still about; the cab horses were sliding on the roadway; small boys were sliding on the pavement, and boys of a larger growth, respectable elderly gentlemen, were unwillingly imitating them. The spectacle inspired me with one of my happiest New Year’s resolutions. “For the future,” I said to myself, “I won t worry about anything . I will let things slide.”
That resolution I have honestly endeavoured to carry out. Things that used to trouble me once trouble me no longer. I let them slide. If I see a scathing criticism on a hook or a play which I have written, I don’t walk about or tear my hair and thirst for the writer’s blood. I read the criticism, shrug my shoulders, and let it slide. If a good natured friend comes to me and tells me that so and so has been saying wicked things about me, I don’t write a furious letter to so and so and ask him what he means by such behaviour. I let it slide
The other day the builder who was repairing my leads informed me that the roof of my house was in a very unsafe condition that I ought to have it entirely reslated. I thanked him for informing me of the matter but I let it slide. There I confess that in sticking to my New Year’s resolution I made a mistake. My roof slid so far that some of it fell over into the street and people in various walks of life came to me with portions of slate embedded in their skulls and demanded compensation. A roof is the one thing which if you hold a repairing lease it is never advisable to let slide. As to New Year’s resolutions well everybody lets them slide.
George Sims
From: The Idler: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine edited by Jerome Klapka Jerome (author of the delightfully funny Three Men in a Boat To Say Nothing of the Dog), Robert Barr, Sidney H. Sime, Arthur Lawrence