New Year’s resolutions

A lot of people have actually given up making them. Maybe the prospect of often failing has discouraged many. Whether it’s something kept to the self, or publicly broadcast to friends or social media, a lot of people do still make them to start the year. And it’s, of course, logical. What a better time to tell one’s self to do something new in one’s life, one certainly for the better, than a brand-new year!

But let’s backtrack a little. Why do we want to make New Year’s resolutions in the first place? And how do we think of one? Usually, it’s through reevaluation of our personal lives, especially the way we live it and the choices we made. We have a retrospection of lifestyle that we had and the changes that we want. It might include physical issues like living healthier but often, it involves hopeful changes in character, attitude, and how we deal with the world and our fellowmen.

More so often we yearn for these changes as we go through the year. But there is more impetus and certainly a higher degree of determination if we tie them to the end of a year and the coming of the next. These are issues that we think are, or at least, not good, and we want to change them to what is good, or for the better. New Year’s resolutions are seldom towards bad things or getting worse, they’re made because deep inside we yearn for the better.

Who among us have accomplished a single New Year’s resolution? I’ll give the benefit of the doubt for those who did with my congratulations, but I haven’t heard of any myself. I wouldn’t be the first one to say it is really a difficult thing to do, almost impossible, especially the ones involving changes in character and outlook in life. Because a lot of those boil down to our perspective of the meaning and purpose of our lives.

The reason for yearning to be good and to be better comes from a deeper realization that there is something inherently lacking in our being, that there are tendencies, feelings, and emotions that we know are not good or aligned to what we perceive as good. Man is sinful, I have yet to meet a person who says he’s not a sinner and thus already morally perfect with not a taint of wrongdoing in his life. It is this sense of sinfulness that urges us to become better and make all those New Year’s resolutions we also fail to accomplish.

But wait… if we want something good, better, and aligned with what God desires for us, wouldn’t he himself help us and will be the one to guide us through? The reason we fail too often is because we depend so much on ourselves and shun the grace and faithfulness of God. If we align our New Year’s resolutions with what God desires for us, is there anything God cannot do? Maybe the better resolution for this new year is to endeavor to listen to God and know him more. If we do that, all other things we wish will certainly come to pass, too.