Here we are, the first full week of the new year, a week best known for basking in undecked halls, enjoying bargains purchased with the same people we complained about the day after Thanksgiving and debating whether we should put in for time off work next December now or simply find a new job with a more compassionate company that knows to just shut down for the last 10 days of the year.

But this is also a time of introspection and personal review. Did we accomplish everything we set out to achieve last year? Or at least all the things we bragged about in our Christmas letters? Of course not. But we don’t spent time fretting about that. Instead we turn our attention to the next 360-some days.

I have a couple of New Year’s wishes (to be on “Oprah” and for the Jayhawks to win another national title, just like every year), but I don’t do annual resolutions. Forty days of Lent is plenty for me; an entire year of bettering myself is impossible to ask. So since I still have a couple of months to come up with my own self-improvement list, I am free to dream up resolutions for everyone else.

My list is meager, a realistic and attainable set of goals for us to collectively embrace: an end to all illness, corporate corruption and TMZ’s coverage of all Kardashians and those who keep up with them.

However, if by chance the New Year’s baby offers to grant me just one wish this week as part of some World-Wide New Year’s Stimulus Package, I am prepared to do a little downsizing.

Obviously the first item off my list would be an end to illness, for without illness in the world we could never call in sick to work again:

“Hey, boss, (cough cough sniffle) I can’t make it to work today.”

“Why not?”

“Can’t you tell? (wheeze) I’m sick.”

“No, illness was wished away by River City Jules earlier this year. Now get to work or you’re covering for the entire office next Christmas, you faker!”

Next off my list would be an end to corporate corruption, as it has its place in our lives as well. Yes, we cringe at the shamelessness of crooked CEOs, but the truth is we count on them to boost our own self-esteem. After all, citizens like Bernie Madoff make us feel, when we are at our most self-centered and lazy, as though we are not the biggest losers on the planet.

So this leaves me with ending coverage of all Kardashians. And that one is non-negotiable. It is past time for Kourtney, Kim and the other one (or are there two more?) to fade away like a real tan in winter. I don’t care if one of them marries Prince Harry in the double wedding of the century or cures cancer, I don’t want to hear about it.

Although if one of them can get me on “Oprah,” I am all ears.