New Year’s resolutions should be done with serious intent, else you reveal yourself as a not-serious person. A resolution – or a set of them – brought forth with no intention to keep them is a frivolous exercise, a pre-ordained futility. It is said that most New Year’s resolutions are abandoned within a few days, and very few survive the January chill. I wonder if it has always been so or is this another sign of a people who have forgotten how to be resolute? What is the point of free will if one refuses to abide by one’s own decisions?
This year I have committed to a small list that I am certain will test my resolve:
- To be more charitable toward those who are not acting in a charitable manner. (Perhaps it is necessary to define charity. Aquinas defines this as the love of man for God, and the concomitant love of man for neighbor, together the greatest commandment. It is much more than the giving of goods to others, but the giving of one’s better nature. Charity is lacking in our society these days.)
- To confine my eating to a 10-hour window so as to discipline my body with extended fasting. Recent studies have shown this an effective way to lose weight and to bring about other beneficial health changes.
- To walk a bit more, and to talk a bit less.
- To listen to others with greater intensity.
- To pray with fewer distractions.
- To put more love into my work, and more work into the love I profess.
- To visit the confessional at least once each calendar month. As I tell my students, reconciliation is like a shower. Everyone needs to wash off the accumulated dirt occasionally.
After the Gold Rush 