(For those of us facing flagging resolve)

"HEADACHES ARE LIKE RESOLUTIONS.  YOU FORGET THEM AS SOON AS THEY STOP HURTING."- Janet Leigh's Marion Crane, Psycho (1960)

True, there are some activities that, despite requiring effort, are enjoyable, rewarding, even lucrative.  For the purposes of honoring health commitments inspired and/or renewed by the turnover of years, the following quotations should be taken to site those arduous, even perhaps painful chores one must fulfill to reach self-improvement goals.  For me, that is reducing strenuous, aerobic exercise while increasing calorie consumption through a variety of rich, minimally-processed sources.  It does not apply to pleasurable occupations involving, say, the visual arts, which I do voluntarily anyway.  There is a reason resolutions are called "challenges".  I beg the reader's pardon should this repeat from a previous entry, but, to paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt (who was equally accomplished and resolute by his own reputation),  the most worthy commitments are rarely achieved without a modicum of strife and toil.  Only actors and nannies get paid for child's play --and believe me, even their jobs can be murder.

• "Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else."- Sir James Barrie, Scottish dramatist
• "Work is a dull thing; you cannot get away from that.  The only agreeable existence is one of idleness, and that is not, unfortunately, always compatible with continuing to exist at all." - Rose Macaulay, English poet and essayist
• "No one asked you to be happy.  Get to work." - Colette, French author