Resolutions

Happy New Year from the frozen north – at least the south suburbs of Chicago! The photo to the right is this morning's view from my office window.

When I got up this morning reasonably early, despite having been out for New Year’s Eve (We had old fart New Year’s with our neighbors. At midnight my wife and I kissed each other, said we had to go home and go to bed, and we did.), the world was completely new. It was soft, silent, white, and clean, the way each new year, indeed each new day, should be. No one told me I had to go to work, no major projects loomed before me, nothing of importance lay left undone from last year.

I felt compelled to come out to my office and write though. People ask writers why we write, and the answer always is because we have to. I had to come out and write because I had been away from my office for the last week and the words are pushing out of my fingers.

At this time of year that I generally feel pressure to make New Year’s resolutions. The news media exhort us to change our lives with the new year. Friends ask us what our resolutions are. It’s kind of like Lent: What have I given up this year?

But I’m not making resolutions this year. I do not hereby resolve to lose twenty (or fifty or one hundred twenty) pounds. I do not hereby resolve to get to the health club every day and work out from the time it opens until lunch. I do not hereby resolve to watch more television news or less television or something like that. I do not hereby resolve anything.

Rather, I’ve decided to work on my intentions. I intend to be more patient, more kind, more faithful in all the ways that count, slower to anger and quicker with praise. To myself and other people, particularly the service people I use more frequently in my old age.

My resolutions usually fail because once I break one, I give up. I didn’t lose the weight so what the hell, I’m going to eat that whole box of chocolates and enjoy myself and put further temptation out of my way. I missed a day at the health club, and I can’t stand up after three or five or eight hours of exercise, so what the hell, I won’t bother going back. I suspect most people give up after breaking a resolution, so they don’t fulfill their resolutions in the end. It isn’t a matter of will power, it’s a matter of human nature (I know, dear readers and former students, I know. That was a comma splice. And I used a sentence fragment in the previous paragraph. Once you learn the rules, you learn how to break them for special effect).

If I fail in my intentions, I haven’t completely lost my way in this beautiful, soft pristine new year. Instead, I have erred (pronounced urd, not aired, please) and I can continue with my intentions next time.

As I see you and talk to you I hope I am more patient, more kind, more faithful, slower to anger and quicker with praise. Happy New Year.

Please click comments below and post your resolutions or intentions. I hope to hear from you.