Agent of C.H.A.N.G.E.

Keep it under your hat, but I'm working undercover as a fifth columnist (the fourth columnist got fired for bad spelling) in a secret organization known variously as Cooperative Hands Attempting Naturally Good Efforts (C.H.A.N.G.E.), or else Connecting Hopefully About Newly Generated Energy (C.H.A.N.G.E.), or maybe Coherent Harangues Against Never Getting Even (C.H.A.N.G.E.), or a name to be played later.

One of the rituals conducted by this clandestine organization is starting the year with a hush-hush reaffirmation of what everybody already knows in an effort to do what nobody every does, that is, turn over a new leaf. In our attempt to set a clear intention and start the year on the right foot, we ritually make commonsense statements as if they were big discoveries. This time, our annual new year's oracular consultation yielded the following amazing predictions:

1. It's a good year to use one's power to serve, to make a sacrifice to benefit someone else's development, and to imitate the good we observe in others. (I Ching)

2. It's a good year to be humble, to gain by giving, to use one's gifts to help others and thus indirectly to gain materially, and to let the consequences be what they may. (Tarot)

3. Society has some of the same afflictions outwardly as individuals do inwardly, and individuals can make a dent in many social problems by addressing their own ethical baggage, chips on shoulders, and knee-jerk nastiness.

Who knew? So as a result of these startling revelations, I am going to make an attempt to do things a little differently. While other people are making "resolutions" - pause for convulsive laughter - to lose ten pounds, get in shape (what shape, I ask, a triangle? a tetrahedron? a pretzel?), quit smoking, change jobs, or some other meaningful but self-serving goal, I hereby pledge my intention to do something useful.

It could be argued that by trying to be useful, I am also making a self-serving attempt to benefit personally through appearing to be altruistic, kind, and clever. Look at me, I'm so very humble and selfless and helpful, you should really admire me, double my salary, or speak well of me to potential disciples. Point taken.

I admit that those things would be cool, too, but it doesn't count if you're looking in the mirror all the time and listing your good deeds in your resume. Nor does it expiate those self-centered desires if you do the old self-deprecating schtick, thus allowing the ego to do an end-around - self-aggrandisement through self-abnegation - otherwise known as "do-gooder." Given the tendency for good intentions to pave the road to someplace bad, maybe it's better to stay put, stand pat, and play the hand you're dealt.

Habits are stronger than anything, and the smart money is usually on things not changing significantly any time soon. All things being equal, you and I both will continue to do the same things we've been doing in pretty much the same way we've been doing them. And that's the good news. Any real change will occur incrementally if at all, and a good bit of it will involve backsliding, resistance, and reaction. Have a nice day.

Here's the rub: it's incomparably more entertaining to push against inertia than to succumb to it. Aside from the uncontrolable question of whether anyone actually benefits, I guess it's the effort itself - to lose ten pounds, to reorganize the automotive industry, to correct that misplaced comma - that's worthwhile.

Since we're talking about small actions taken one at a time by individuals, at best what happens is that people change themselves, not other people or the institutions that entrap them. My efforts to change the corporation or the country won't change the corporation or the country, but they might change my habits, and that will have to do this time around.