Resolution revolution

Sigmund Freud, in his "Pleasure Principle," basically stated that every act a human undertakes is done with the intent of making that person happy.

The people we choose as friends and spouses, the careers we pursue and even the food we eat is all the result of our own desire to be happy.

The drive to fulfill our desires (the "id") to increase our own pleasure can get out of hand. If we don't balance our pursuit of pleasure with self-restraint (the "ego), then we can become self-centered monsters bent on nothing more than pleasure.

Now Freud was strange, and often a little creepy, but I think he has a point with his "Pleasure Principle."

By using Freud's system, I'm going to put a new twist on my New Year's Resolutions for 2007.

Resolutions rarely create happiness. They usually entail giving up something that I actually enjoy and toiling for months to keep the resolution. The problem is that I, like most Americans, am terrible at keeping resolutions for longer than a few months. So I make resolutions that I don't really want to make, expend energy I don't want to give toward a goal I don't like and then add failure to the process.

Not my idea of how to achieve happiness.

I'm not making any resolutions this year - not for me, at least. I figure the best way for my New Year to be happier than last year does not lie in changing myself but by changing everyone around me. Finally, resolutions that work!

Here is a list of ideas that everyone else can keep to make my life better. Because in the end, isn't a happier me what we all really want? So let your id run wild and don't hold back. I'm counting on you.

The list, in no particular order:

1. Feel free to drive the speed limit. If I can get out of my car and jog alongside you, you are driving too slow on the highway. The big white signs with numbers on them - please attempt to approach that. And while we're on the subject of cars, I'd like to point out a recent invention that is brilliant.

Just to the left of your steering wheel, there is probably a lever that sticks out. By pushing it up or down, it sends impulses to lights on the front and rear of your car. This is called a "turn signal." Whenever you want to turn left or right, just hit the lever so people behind you aren't trying to guess why you are slowing down for no reason.

And if someone wants to buy me a James Bond car, that would be great. Preferably, it will have the ability to drop grenades or nail strips to punish tailgaters. If you're so close that I can't see your headlights, I'm going to hit the smite button.

2. For the love of all things related to sanity please oh please realize that you can actually turn off cell phones. Everywhere I go the things are ringing like mad. Only they don't ring - they blast horrible renditions of popular music. In church, at the movies, in restaurants - there's no escape. The ringtones are so ridiculously loud that people in the next county know you have a phone call.

And why do I see 12-year-olds running around with cell phones? What in the world do they have to talk about that is so important that they actually need a phone that travels? I think the only thing I've ever heard them say during one of these "conversations" is "No way!" "Oh, my God!" "And then she was like…" I feel my IQ drop every time this happens.

My favorite are the cell phone fighters. Don't you just love overhearing lovers' quarrels, someone arguing with a contractor, etc.? Can someone publish a "Cell Phone Etiquette for Dummies" book, pronto? I better get royalties for that, too.

3. I love kids, I really do, but could someone start a chain of theaters, stores and restaurants that doesn't allow anyone under 21? I would love to go out and watch a movie that didn't involve kids streaking up and down the aisles, or shouting or crying. Same goes for grocery stores, malls, restaurants and Earth.

I would pay exorbitant prices for this.

4. And finally, have a very happy New Year.