JANUARY 8 — One week into the New Year and what do we have?

To those who have made resolutions and are still at it, kudos must be given to you.

This, coming from someone who’s never made any but rather chooses to work it out slowly throughout the year.

Resolutions are tough to live up to especially if one sets the bar too high.

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It can serve to be an incentive to drive you to be a better person but then there is always the fear of falling short of it.

Lose that extra 10kg? No problem.

Hit the gym or jogging track. Eat healthy foods. Diet (never has a four-letter word been so feared).

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Of course, it’s not about losing the extra weight.

It’s making sure that it stays off and this gets harder as one climbs up the age ladder.

Tried it once. Lost 5kg and it was duly regained in less time than it took to write a tweet.

Unless you are one of the lucky few that has a high metabolic rate and can shovel down enough food to feed a village and not look like a bean bag afterwards.

Weight management, as it has been trumpeted to us many times over, is one way to keep non-communicable diseases at  bay.

A broken record that is so often played in our country as we scramble towards being a first world nation in the next five years.

That was the resolution drawn up way back in 1991 and, in a nutshell, was for Malaysia to be a developed nation by 2020 from all aspects, including the economy, social well being, political stability and psychological balance.

Undeniably the country has made great strides in the material objects department with all the wonderful air-conditioned shopping malls with so many bright and shiny things to tempt you to part with your hard-earned moolah.

The type of eateries that exist is no longer confined to the warung.

Rather, we now have the “warung” - basically, regular food sold at way higher prices.

But hey, you want a better ambience? Pay for it.

Coupled with that massive development popping up like massive Lego bricks everywhere, the country seems to be capable on reaching 2020 with that 1991 vision intact.

But brewing beneath all the pretty buildings and poor road conditions courtesy of heavy vehicles ferrying construction material, some quarters beg that it is not so beautiful after all.

Let’s take a stroll of the beautiful and the ugly.

If there is one thing that the recent past has reminded us is that we are generous. (Big yay to that!)

We have whipped out our wallets and filled the multitude of containers to bring aid to our less fortunate brothers and sisters hit by the disastrous floods.

Plus we have a survey to prove it.

Malaysia took 7th spot out of 135 countries in the World Giving Index 2014, an index that measures charitable behaviour that was conducted by UK’s Charities Aid Foundation (CAD).

This was a huge jump from 71 in 2013 that the foundation said suggested a “wholesale” behavioural change in Malaysia.

Three questions were asked during a poll.

These were whether he had donated money to a charity in the past month, volunteered in an ogranisation or helped a stranger who needed aid.

It was also suggested that the jump was contributed by humanitarian efforts following Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

The country also contributed after flooding in China five years ago.

Volunteers sort out food items for flood victims at the RMAF base in Subang, Selangor. — Picture by Azneal Ishak
Volunteers sort out food items for flood victims at the RMAF base in Subang, Selangor. — Picture by Azneal Ishak

With people still picking up the pieces of their lives destroyed by floods, it is hoped that the generosity of Malaysians will continue in the coming months.

But in the wake of it, Malaysians still find the time to criticise, fight and insult each other.

Not withstanding are reports of celebrities taking selfies while on their way or at flood prone areas.

While it’s one thing to show on social media the help that is going to the respective states (I, for one, think it’s a good initiative because it serves as a daily wakeup call to let people know that all is not hunky dory yet), there should be a line drawn. And that is at selfies. Really?

Putting narcissistic traits aside, we also have the misbehaving Malaysians.

Call it what you want. Uncivic minded. rude, and with some filled with rage.

Once again, the issue of road bullies has surfaced and this time with death.

Every time news of a road bully surfaces, it brings back the time when Dad was a victim of road rage.

The assailant, for no reason whatsoever inflicted blow upon blow upon my father and left him with facial injuries.

This was a few years ago and those who know my Dad, will testify that he is tiny. Like really, tiny.

It happened in our residential area while he was getting back from getting ikan haruan to cook for me as I was recovering from surgery.

We did the necessary: got the type and license registration, lodged a police report, went to the hospital for check-up.

The police called him once for a line-up but the brute was not among them.

To this day, the man, who boasted that no action will be taken against him, remains free.

So, while in some areas we seem to be inching rapidly towards developed status, the resolution of 2020 is nothing if we don’t find our way to be, at the very least, better levelheaded humans.

Now, excuse me while I wipe the dust off the exercise equipment and start from zero to lose that 5kg.

* Audrey is news editor at Malay Mail. She can be reached at [email protected]

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or organisation and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.