A Resolution to Write
Father Andrew Pearce, Rector of Bishopston makes his debut message to TheBAY readers a reassuring one. Just remember to make every day a New Year’s Day and refresh your resolutions daily!!
Well, a happy New Year to you all (it’s the middle of January as I write these words, so perhaps I can still get away with this greeting).
Attending the gym this past week, I’ve been conscious of several new faces. One friend tells me that attendance at her ‘healthy eating’ classes has shot up since Christmas, whilst another has discovered a new-found interest in zumba. Clearly, within my circle of friends and acquaintances, many New Year’s resolutions have been made that involve a commitment (or at least an aspiration) to improved physical fitness. I wonder how many of them will last?
We all know how easy it is to make New Year’s resolutions – and how hard it is to stick to them. It’s not surprising that so many regard them as a complete waste of time. A couple of years ago, a colleague told me that the best New Year’s resolution he had ever made was one he had undertaken a decade earlier. ‘I resolved,’ he said, ‘to stop making New Year’s resolutions. It’s the only resolution I’ve succeeded in keeping.’
Perhaps some of you feel the same way; and, like my colleague, you believe yourself liberated from the shackles of a pointless, irrational discipline. And yet there are many of us who persist – and who, despite our failings, want to persist – with our New Year’s resolutions. How, then, do we resolve to make our resolutions more effective?
The temptation, whenever we fail in any new endeavour, is to throw in the towel. The first time we face an obstacle; the first time we feel uncertain; the first time we wonder whether we’re doing the right thing; we think about giving up. I’m almost half way through this first article for TheBAY Magazine, and – believe it or not – I’m very much aware of this temptation, right now!
According to a survey of 3,000 people carried out by the British psychologist Richard Wiseman in 2007, 88% of resolutions end in failure. Neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer, writing in the Wall Street Journal in December 2009, suggests that the reason for this is that we expect too much when we make resolutions. ‘Willpower, like a bicep,’ he says, ‘can only exert itself so long before it gives out; it’s an extremely limited mental resource’. I must remember that analogy next time I’m doing some press-ups at the gym.
Lehrer goes to suggest that ‘we should respect the feebleness of self-control, and spread our resolutions out over the entire year.’ Perhaps it’s no bad thing, therefore, to recognise that just as there is nothing intrinsically special about January 1, there are actually quite a number of days across the calendar that can serve as good markers for fresh starts and new beginnings. For people of faith, these days have been hallowed by many centuries of loyal observance. Christians have Advent Sunday – the beginning of the Christian year – Ash Wednesday and, of course, Easter Day, as special days of renewal and recommitment. Jews have Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) and other high holidays. Other faiths and cultures have their own special days through the year.
As for non-religious people, many of the days of the secular year can serve much the same purpose. In addition to New Year’s Day itself, why not other days? Let me suggest just two: 23rd April (World Book Day), a good day to undertake any resolution with a literary motif; and 24th October (United Nations Day), surely an appropriate occasion on which to pledge ourselves anew to the search for that concord which transcends all barriers of race, colour and creed.
Ultimately, if every day can be seen as offering the potential for a new start, even a new year, then failure is something we no longer need to fear. Christians believe passionately in a God who never gives up on us and who is ready to start afresh with us – time and time again. So don’t be too hard on yourself when that New Year’s resolution seems to lie in tatters. Pause, say ‘Happy New Year’ to yourself; and try again.
Fr Andrew Pearce
