When we make resolutions, what are we really looking for? Are we seeking a new beginning?…a happy ending?… or something already in our grasp?
Now is that typical time of year when we strive to…
- lose weight
- achieve goals
- save money
- quit doing that annoying thing
- start doing that virtuous, cool, or enviable thing
- be a “Better Person”
But why? What’s the point? Why aren’t we just happily embracing the hedonistic joys of foot rubs, chocolate, and tv? Why do resolutions call to us each year despite our already perfect enjoyment of online shopping and melted cheese dishes and warm socks?
What makes us want to go beyond our daily selves?
What are we really after?
If we think about the concept of a resolution, in itself, we can see the possibilities. The word resolution can mean “a plan” — like any diet or exercise or other fabulous, ambitious New Year’s plan. But a resolution also means “a conclusion” — just like you’d conclude a book chapter or resolve the answer to a sticky problem.
A resolution is a conclusion – How funny that we start the year with an ending, a resolve, an attempt at a culmination. A resolution is a way of coming or returning to an answer.
As time slips along, day after day we drift a little further down the stream from ourselves, from who we really are. A resolution can reflect our hope to return, to re-solve, to conclude with what’s real.
When you were two, you yelled when you wanted to yell and you sang when you wanted to sing; when you were five, you told the world what you thought; when you were fifteen, you told the world what you thought it wanted to hear; and now… what do you say? How much of what you express is who you are, what you think, what you want, what you know to be true?
What if the problem we’re trying to solve today — the answer we’re trying to return to — is really the ability to express our honest selves… within the mundanity, challenges, and reality of our daily lives? Not someone one else’s self; our own self.
We want to lose weight to get back to health, to connection, to feeling loved and valuable. We want to stop addictions so that we can be the real, brave, honest, giving person we really are. We want to save money to do what matters; we want to stop living the material life of a stranger.
When you resolve, look from the plan to the conclusion; where are you going, what are you re-solving?
In the 14th century, to “resolve” meant to loosen, unyoke, undo, and set free. In this year to come, and in every day, I urge you to dispel the myths and habits of who you pretend to be and to set free the loving, brave person you are.