High-resolution holidays

Now is about the time you start hearing people talk about the resolutions they’re going to make once January 1 rolls around. There’s an endless variety. You might hear a coworker say she’s going to get back into going for long fitness walks. A friend of a friend says he’s going to start reading more of those books he’s been meaning to get to.   Pardon me while I laugh. 

No matter how they’re phrased, all New Year’s resolutions are essentially the same thing, which is self-delusion. It boils down to this: if you were genuinely serious about whatever it is you’re resolving to do, you wouldn’t wait for an arbitrary date on the calendar to begin doing it. There’s nothing remotely special about January 1. It’s just another day. It doesn’t even correspond to any celestial event. If you resolved to start eating right on the summer solstice, I would still think you were full of shit, but at least I would have more respect for the thought you put into picking a significant date.

The bigger point, though, is that change doesn’t happen by deferring it to the future. The future is interesting, but it’s only an idea. For anything you want to do, there must be some way to get started today. There’s no time like the present, because the present is the only time we actually live in.

I wouldn’t be so cynical as to say that all resolutions are bogus. People can and do improve themselves. But the postdated resolutions people begin trotting out each December bear none of the qualities of effective resolutions. People start eating healthy and exercising when they see an embarrassing photo of themselves and suddenly realize how far they’ve let themselves go. People stop drinking when they have a falling out with an old friend and suddenly realize how much they’ve lost through alcohol. The commonality among resolutions like this is the inescapable feeling that one has to begin now. A resolution will never stick if there isn’t a sense of urgency to it. 

But the holiday season provides a convenient excuse for our weaknesses. It’s filled with bad food and distracting activities that we can point to as the source of our failings. Once the season is over, and all the bad things are gone, we’ll get down to that serious business of living. Only it doesn’t work like that. You’re going to eat better once the cookies and candies are gone? Well, there are always cookies and candies available. You’re going to start that website or read those books or paint those pictures or whatever once there’s less friends and family stuff going on? Well, there’s always friends and family stuff going on. 

To really change any part of your life, you have to realize that your life is happening at every moment. Time is continuous. It doesn’t start and stop at our defined intervals. Any moment is as ripe as any other to begin doing anything. The holiday season does present particular difficulties (especially for the perennial resolution of eating better), but if your January resolution is going to stick, doesn’t that necessarily mean defying those difficulties next December? Why not rip the band-aid off now and be stronger than it all this year? If you don’t get started now, you probably won’t ever.