This Saturday, of course, will be New Year's Day -- the day we all gather 'round and commemorate the moment when George Washington crossed the Cuyahoga River to chop down a big blue ox.

Wait. That's St. Andrew's Day.

No, New Year's Day, and more specifically New Year's Eve, is when we go into our annual panic about the state of our lives. In that panic we decide that how we enter the new year will be indicative of how we will spend all eternity.

For example, it's a well-known fact that if you find yourself without someone to smooch at midnight on New Year's Eve, you will be single forever. You will also develop a hunchback and Osama bin Laden will refer to you as "a close personal friend" in his next video message.

Considering the importance of getting one's estate in order before the clock strikes 12, it's odd that so many people choose to drink heavily on New Year's Eve. According to the previous logic, it would seem they are hoping to spend the whole of the coming year running around the room insisting that Tony Orlando is a musical genius and trying to recruit others for a road trip to Winnipeg.

Actually, that doesn't sound all that bad. And now that I think about it, I tend to do that in total sobriety.

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Once all the celebration is over, most of us then spend New Year's Day making empty promises to ourselves, such as: "If I can't pronounce the name of a drink, I should not drink it," and ,"No matter how high-minded it may appear on paper, I am never again going to invite my ex-girlfriend to an event where my wife will be present."

The tradition of making resolutions extends all the way back to the ancient Babylonians. Back in those days, a common resolution was a vow to return borrowed farm equipment. One wonders if the pledge, "This year I'm going to return Calneh's plow," rang as hollow as the more modern promise to "stop eating so much cheese."

Resolutions, it would seem, are made to be broken. For convenience and tax purposes, I have already broken mine.

If you are the sort of person to make resolutions, I would recommend making one that won't upset you once it's broken. For example: "I will encourage my family to sing a quick Broadway tune before dinner."

True, green bean casserole just tastes better after you've belted out "Climb Every Mountain," but it's something you can live without.

Too many of us choose resolutions that are difficult, such as losing weight, or reading more or developing an appreciation for ESPN Classic. It's not that these resolutions are impossible to fulfill (well, except for that one about ESPN Classic), it's just that by making them on New Year's we give them an unrealistic chance of succeeding.

We frequently dream of The One True Fix To All Our Problems. We seem to want to be able to do one thing that will initiate a knock-on effect and thus deliver a perfect life. Think of how many times you've allowed your imagination to spin off into the universe as you thought of the possible consequences of, say, lifting weights:

If you work out regularly, you will look better and feel better. If you look better and feel better, people will like you more. You'll become popular, and through that popularity your employer will finally realize how woefully underpaid and overlooked you've been all these years, and your salary will doubled. With your extra money, you'll travel around the world with your exceedingly gorgeous and enviably amorous girlfriend (whom you've wooed through your charm, popularity and good looks), and at a cafe in Milan you'll be asked to stand in at a fashion show. They'll pay you millions of dollars and you'll buy a ranch in Montana. All because you picked up something heavy.

New Year's resolutions have this element to them. By promising to start doing something on Jan. 1, we put so much importance on a single day that we hurt the chances of keeping our resolutions as the consecutive days wear on.

In the absence of a calendar, Jan. 1 doesn't actually mean anything. It's not the start or end of a lunar or solar cycle, there's no agrarian connection -- it's just a day.

So if you don't have a significant other to kiss on midnight, or your life isn't right where you want it, it doesn't matter anymore than it did last Tuesday. If you want to make a promise, you don't have to wait -- you can act on it right away.

The farming equipment on the other hand ... If your friend hasn't asked for it back yet, I think you can just keep it.

Chris Cope is married, with no children. His column appears every other Tuesday.