On: Resolutions

The Oxford Dictionary defines a resolution as “a firm decision to do or not to do something.”

The New Year is typically the time when we make resolutions, whether to lose weight or exercise more or read more or drink less, and there are plenty of studies that aim to determine how long these resolutions typically last and why they fail in the first place.

I’ve never been big on resolutions (the thought of doing something for a whole year overwhelms me) and yet here I am having resolved to blog each day this year.

2019. Three hundred and sixty-five days. Eight thousand, seven hundred and sixty hours. (Sing it with me now…) five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure a year?

I guess I’ll measure this year here, with you reader, if you read it.

But back to resolutions…

I’ve grown reluctant over the years to even have resolutions to begin with. Mostly because I know I’ll fail. I know this. I know I’ll probably fail this one as well. I’ll fail to lose weight or to exercise more. I’ll fail to read or save money. I’ll fail doing anything I don’t already do. Change is intrinsically hard to do. Intentional change. Change happens by itself, naturally, all the time. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. I am not the same person now as who woke up this morning. I am not the same person in this sentence as I was in the first. But cultivating that change, molding it to your will. That is where change becomes hard.

As much as I love writing. I don’t do it every day. I think about writing. I imagine the scenes and dialogue. I imagine the intricacies of the world’s I long to create, but the actual writing is harder.

Because I’m afraid to fail.

I can read any advice to starting writers about how writing is a process and how the first draft of any story is barely identifiable as an iteration of the finished product. And still I’m afraid that my writing will never be good enough. Not even for me.

I’m afraid to fail.

I know that the person I am now is not the person I will be on December 31st, 2019. There is no telling the choices I’ll have to make. The roads I’ll go down. The people I’ll love. Those I’ll lose. I am paralyzed in the face of my future.

I’m afraid to fail.

I don’t make resolutions because I’m afraid to fail.

I refuse to make firm decisions to do or not to do something because I’m afraid to fail regardless of what that decision is.

So here’s my first act of 2019. I forgive myself for failing. I forgive myself all my past failures; there is nothing I can do about those. I forgive myself the failures of the future; I am human, failure is my middle name. I’m going to fail, but I can choose to pick myself back up again and continue in the face of those failures.

I hope you, too, can resolve to continue in the face of your failures.