New year, same old bollocks?

Joined a gym? Having a ‘dry’ January? Rubbish. Losing weight*, saving money, swapping jobs, quitting smoking*, helping others, travelling? Yawn. This year, make a real difference says Adam Burns: stop being a bitch.

My wife spent 16 hours delivering our son. He was back-to-back – his spine grinding against hers with every contraction. Self hypnosis was abandoned, gas and air tried and failed. Late on a needle was needed and, when he got trapped in the birth canal and the oxygen supply to his brain spluttered, a plunger.

I did not share the pain of this life-changing miracle, and there’s a lot like me: it happens every four seconds. I did spend a good hour trying to look sensitive before giving up, popping out for breakfast and pulling myself together. I returned, scared and helpful. Childbirth may have taken place next to me, but I fetched cups of water.

Today, I can talk about how incredible my wife was during labour. She can bitch about the pain. And I’m setting myself a challenge: extend these rules of the delivery room to my life.

1. Can’t do it? Don’t bitch about someone who can. Learn, help, or go for breakfast and come back when you can do something.

2. If things don’t help you, move on. Don’t waste time bitching about what didn’t work.

3. Remember the bigger picture: we’re trying to create something. Bitching won’t help.

4. When something grates your spine from the inside, sure, bitch about it.

How much time and energy did you waste in 2013? Be honest. Here are some hours I’ll never get back:

* Easter eggs in January

* Son and friends pulling tongues in every photo

* A conference session that didn’t work

* The Real Housewives of New York City

I got cross because chocolate was in the wrong shape, a Facebook feed looked like a thousand Miley Cyrii (teenagers in influenced-by-pop shock), not every experiment succeeds, and somewhere in Manhattan there’s a woman running in traffic to better “feel” the city. I wasted time when I could have been doing. I moaned when the right people didn’t get the right credit, but did nothing about it. I complained about decisions, but never committed myself to a solution.

I was a bitch. I’m stopping. You should too. The world doesn’t need it.

*If you need to lose weight you really should. And stop smoking. Then focus on the bitch thing.