Resolve

 

There has been a movement in recent years to rename the New Year’s Resolution. I understand the impulse. It’s easy to start off the New Year with a “New Year, new you!” fantasy: This year I will [pick 1: Quit smoking. Lose weight. Stop eating chocolate (though, seriously, why would you want to?). Exercise more. Get in touch with my spirituality. Take up yoga, painting, woodcraft, knitting, spelunking. Get organized. Etc.]! And then, within two months or two weeks or two hours you have already failed at whatever it was you wanted to change about yourself. This is only natural; just because you have hung up a new calendar doesn’t mean that you yourself are any different or any more able to suddenly change habits that are carved into your grains. Any kind of change takes time – and not the kind of time that is marked by a countdown and a dropping ball somewhere on the East Coast, but rather the kind that ticks by and must be used wisely as any currency. But we are still disappointed with ourselves, and with our recurring failure, and then it’s all too easy to give up and forget whatever stupid resolution you made in a flight of wishful New Year’s thinking.

 

And that’s why so many have recently been advocating a change in the concept of a New Year’s Resolution. We could call them promises instead, or take certain steps to actually see them through, or not make them at all! Some friends decided to make fun resolutions, like finding the perfect shade of lipstick or trying a new recipe. And this is all very good, no doubt. Of course, it won’t stop the tradition of making New Year’s Resolutions any more than saying “Happy Holidays” has stopped anyone from exchanging gifts, decorating, and feasting on Christmas Day. We still have expert-written articles on keeping our promises to ourselves and two weeks of ads for running shoes, gyms, and exercise equipment. But it does make me think: About nomenclature, first off. “Resolution” has a bad feel to it, because we have all failed at keeping them; and for that reason some suggest calling them promises, or goals, or whatever – that way, the negative association is negated. It’s a way of tricking our minds into trying something we might otherwise be reluctant to do.

 

But take the nomenclature one step further; a resolution is not inherently bad. Change it a little; resolution is good. A little more; we must have resolve. It is, in fact, very easy to not have resolve. It’s easy to make a New Year’s Resolution that is actually, as Mary Poppins would say, a piecrust promise – easily made and easily broken. But to have the resolution to take a certain step, to be resolved to make a change – that is something else entirely!

 

I’m not big on resolve. I’m stubborn and obstinate, but that’s different; I can obstinately meander, and I can stubbornly endure what I ought to alter. But there are things that must change, and things I must resolve to do. Resolve is becoming necessary for me – though also awkward since I tend to have ludicrously high expectations for myself anyway, so I will have to find the balance between what I can do and what I dream of doing.

 

The New Year is a convenient time to mark a new beginning, and a good place to say “by this time a year from now, such and such will be different”. So I do have my own, traditional resolutions:

Fun resolution – Making time to read (I’m distractible, so this is surprisingly hard).

Serious resolution – Getting to a healthy weight.

Goal for 2015 – Beginning the process of straightening my teeth (I’ve put it off, with excellent excuses, for long enough!)

Promise – I will finish at least one other book, and try publishing something.

But all of those are aside from the resolve I must have to bring them about, and to simply make it through the tasks before me.

 

It is not easy for me to blog or keep up a presence of any kind on social media, but I must. It has become difficult for me to sit down and write, but I must. Finishing any project is a challenge, but, one at a time, slowly but surely, I must. Earning money is hard, but I must do it. I am so bad at marketing that I generally try to talk people out of buying whatever it is that I’m trying to sell, but I must market. Resolve! How I need it!

 

And resolve is needed in so many ways. It isn’t just for New Year’s Day, when we make Resolutions that aren’t resolutions. We slip, and promise, and break our promises before they are made. Perhaps resolution itself is a habit we should practice and form!