Since it’s common to discuss New Year’s resolutions around this time, I’ll offer my general thoughts on them, what passes for my 2008 resolution and how it came to be.
Some of the cynicism toward resolutions that you hear these days is understandable. I clearly remember my impression of the custom two years ago. Starting in the first days of January my gym was so packed with people I’d never seen before that there was a long wait for equipment. Most irritating, but no matter – within a month they were all gone. Dramatic? Yes. Surprising? No. Getting in shape wouldn’t be the most frequently made resolution year after year if people were more successful at it. I’d been among the ghosts of February myself at least twice in previous years.
Maybe we sometimes behave like this because resolutions can be a way of voicing out loud to others something we want to do in the hopes that saying so to friends and family will somehow make it so for us. It is too easy substitute a wish for a commitment without realizing it and in the process make an empty resolution – one that doesn’t actually contain any resolve. That mistake isn’t always the end of the story. The resolve might come later. But if not…? Then the resolution soon becomes a person’s broken promise to self, and that can do pretty damaging things. Breaking a promise to someone else damages their trust in you. Breaking a promise to yourself damages your belief in your own will. In this way the failure of a single casual resolution can actually serve to undermine your determination in general – not good! I suppose real commitments are always internal first. True resolutions are great things, but wishes out loud are probably best left to that which we truly can’t control.
For many years this presented me with a problem every bit as big as my mouth. I find it hard to keep much of anything inside, and thus it has always been easy for my aspirations to become expressed wishes before they can mature into real commitments. Realizing that fact and then surpassing the problem is something that I take as one of my better marks of maturity. So to anyone that might ask my advice – still worth only what’s paid for it – it would be this: Be honest about the difference between what you’d like to do and what you are committed to doing. And if you fall into the wishing trap don’t beat yourself up. Remember that you had the best intentions, keep confident and move forward.
I avoid the wishing trap at the New Year by using the opportunity to build on something. Something that I’ve already shown myself that I’m committed to. In that way I hopefully reinforce a good thing and proceed to make it better. That brings me to my resolution for 2008, which this year was an easy choice.
Whenever I feel any animosity brewing toward another person, I plan to adjust my attitude by remembering these words from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”
Isn’t that excellent? If it doesn’t strike a chord I suggest reading it again. Really. Consider some of your own enemies – or even just people you’ve been irritated with – and what their hidden sorrows might be. Reflect on some of your own and how they might have affected your behavior for the worse. Doesn’t it adjust your feelings, if only a little? Although I really am a bit of a quote hound, I stumbled on this one by complete chance. I think. The way it happened is a good story.
I travel quite a lot for business. To put it in perspective, I made platinum on two airlines in 2007. There are a lot of unavoidable frustrations and stresses that come along with that much time on the road, and during one particularly draining marathon last summer bad weather found me in Denver and left me without a flight home and with no available hotel rooms. I’d have to drive at least an hour to sleep and the next day would now be lost traveling – again. I was exhausted and very irritable. Storming away from the gate my thoughts wandered toward a lingering conflict at work and before you know it I was thinking pretty bad things toward a couple of colleagues. My frustrations with travel transfered to my frustrations with them and the result was nasty. As I disgustedly dropped into my seat on the train I tilted my head up in that way you sometimes see people do when they’ve had enough. It was only then that I saw Longfellow’s quote in a little space on the wall of the train car, almost at the ceiling. It was in one of those small spots reserved for non-commercial messages. My mood immediately shifted toward reflection. Of course my hidden malice would do nothing to improve their behavior and everything to make mine worse. That clarifying moment stuck with me and was a big help later in the year. Before jumping off the train I hastily typed the quote into my Blackberry and verified it later.
Of course I haven’t done a perfect job of keeping Longfellow’s observation at heart, but I know that the effort has made a difference. My New Year’s resolution is to ensure that it continues to do so.
Thanks, Henry.
