New years’ resolution revolution...part 1

I have a new schedule for my life. You know the kind – those hour by hour to do lists created in an excel worksheet (in a momentary lapse of realism), printed up and pinned up in a prominent place where you’ll be reminded daily of your new year’s plagues… or pledges rather. Mine has me getting up 6am every morning. It’s now sitting sadly (or to my wife, humorously) on my dresser, reminding me daily how I fail at achieving my new standards of discipline. It was doomed before it was conceived really. My wife knows this, and that is why she finds it funny. She’s found them all over the place: in the junk drawer, in a file on my computer, in my desk, and yes, initially on the dresser or stuck to the refrigerator. I’m sure I create a new one at least twice a year. I know better than to label these schedules (or lists) “new year’s resolutions”, but inevitably one of the editions comes out some time in January.

Why is that? From whence comes the impulse every new year to make another list that will almost certainly follow the fate of the previous twenty as fuel for the furnace of our guilt or inadequacy? Despite my harsh assessment, I propose a noble intent – the desire for transformation. We all want to change. We want to dump the old bad habits and pick up new good ones. By coming up with new year’s resolutions, we admit that we regularly fall short of the standards that we’ve seemingly set for ourselves. We admit that there is a greater good that we are struggling to attain...