Attainable Goals Are Those Set Low Enough To Reach

It’s 1997, dawn of a new year.

And something insidious is beginning to dawn on many of you out there: You’re realizing you have a more realistic chance of becoming the starting shortstop for the New York Yankees than of keeping any of those impossible self-improvement New Year’s resolutions you so foolishly made.

Well, you’re absolutely right to be terrified. But there’s no need to be humiliated by the certain defeat that is speeding your way with the force of an out-of-control Amtrak train.

Many, many others have boldly stood up against their personal demons only to collapse like a polka band accordion.

Tracey Swank and her “Non-Smokers Vacation Club,” for example.

Last Labor Day, I told you about Tracey’s well-intentioned and clever scheme to get herself and her nicotine-addicted pals - Mary Geyer, Daren Garber and Tracey’s hubby, Dan - off the evil weed.

She devised a club with two pages of iron-clad rules.

Each non-smoking member promised to pony up $19.25 a week in dues that would be placed in a savings account. Cheaters would be dinged an extra five bucks per cigarette.

At the end of 12 months, the tobacco-free survivors would take the loot and run to a relaxing vacation on a tropical isle.

The advent of a new year appeared to be the perfect time to check in with these people. So I called Tracey to see if the 30-year-old mother was taking hula lessons in preparation for her sun-baked reward.

“I wouldn’t have made it as long as I did without that nicotine gum,” says Tracey, awash with optimism.

Um, and how long did you make it?

“Four days. It was either smoke or become a homicidal maniac.”

Four days?

Four lousy days?

“Yeah, I was the longest,” she explains. “Dan quit in three days, Daren started smoking after two days and Mary made it about 12 hours.”

Well, that’s not what Mary says.

“It was 19 hours,” the woman counters, describing how she fell off the wagon. “I kind of hid and went downstairs, out by the back basement door. That time I took a couple of puffs.”

These people should rename their group “The Up-In-Smoke Vacation Club.”

I don’t mean to be cruel, but it’s a rare thing for failure to be so overwhelmingly rampant.

“Next time I’m going to try crack,” jokes Dan Swank, 30, of how ineffective the nicotine patch, gum and herbal anti-smoking remedies were.

“Smoking is such a nasty habit. It’s as much a part of your life as getting up in the morning and going to the bathroom.”

Let’s at least give these people credit for so openly confessing their defeat.

“We knew you’d be calling,” says Tracey. “Daren said, ‘Lie. Tell him we all quit.”’ All these poor souls still agree they need to stop polluting the air like a Rathdrum Prairie grass fire in late August.

They can recite the SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING. They know the Marlboro Man was planted in an early grave in Boot Hill.

They know they face a future filled with heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema and ashtray breath.

But “my sobriety was at risk,” says Daren, 36, who gave up booze five years ago. “I started thinking if I got hammered I could smoke all I wanted. I went, ‘Whoa. Better stop that stuff.”’ So he started smoking.

“It was a day or so later when the guilt set in. I know quitting is something I have to do. I just haven’t got the gumption to try it again.”

From this we can see that failure is as inevitable a part of our weak-willed human experience as getting the bloat from a fast-food grease burger.

We need to stop putting so much pressure on ourselves. If we insist on setting goals, they must be reasonable and attainable.

Which is why I have taken the following self-improvement pledge for the new year. In 1997, I will do my very best - to smoke more cigars.

, DataTimes