ONCE upon a time, when I was a little boy I was dragged along to church.

While fidgeting on the rock-hard pews, flicking though the Bible searching for some juicy bits (you'd be amazed at what they got up to in the Old Testament), there is one phrase I distinctly remember the minister uttering: "Be careful - the older you get the harder it is to change."

I think perhaps the chap in the pulpit had slightly more pressing existential issues in mind than his audience's passion for Galaxy Caramels, or their desire to learn how to salsa dance.

But maybe his logic fits just as snugly with New Year's resolutions.

Should I be surveying 2007 with slight nervousness, feeling that perhaps now I'm stuck with me'?

Every time I return home, a strange paradox is revealed.

One month my 16-year-old little sister is a mini-me boho Kate Moss, with a ridiculously affected voice fluttering that everything is "bizarre" or "utterly charming."

Two months down the line and there instead slouches a gurning neo-goth troll, monosyllabically grunting in my direction before shlomping back to her bat-cave.

While she's young and malleable, she's constantly under pressure to modify herself in line with what her friends or those unspeakably awful teenage magazines tell her is cool.

What she longs for is finally to be herself.

So should I feel worried that I may have found myself?

The fact is that with every day that passes, I'm more content with my flaws.

When I was 15 my New Year's resolutions read like a manifesto for my own development: daily press-ups, read War And Peace, learn to ski, kiss more girls.

That's a lot of pressure.

Nowadays I know my body is never going to be a temple, and moreover I'm really quite content with my fairly innocuous shack.

So it seems daft to be concerned; it's not that the ability to change has disappeared, it's just that a comforting satisfaction with the present has appeared, making change seem less desirable.

Anyway, now I remember the positive note with which that preacher in the pulpit finished his sermon all those years ago.

"While it gets harder to change, it's never too late, if you really want to."

I say Amen to that.