New Year’s resolutions
I never make New Year's resolutions. Making resolutions seems like evidence of our failure. Instead, I just do what I want and live with the results. For the same reason, I don’t have a Bucket List, either - a list of things I want to do before I die. I mean, if you’ve left certain dreams unfulfilled until death is bearing down on you, what was the point of your life? What were you doing with your time? I know - people will say that they were raising a family and devoting all their time and money to that, delaying dreams and plans until later in life when they can better afford both the time and the money. That’s an excuse, not a reason. It rationalizes chronic procrastination and the errant, immoral values that support it.
It’s a tiresome chore every New Year when I have to be exposed to people’s - usually foreign people’s - inquiries about my New Year’s resolutions, or I have to listen to them talk about theirs without being able to say what I really think. As a teacher in Japan it grates me to hear some foreign teachers present the notion of New Year’s resolutions as a ‘tradition.’ To me, they seem to be normalizing stupidity. But, again, I can’t say that.
In lieu of resolutions, I try to observe three principles: 1) Everything is irrelevant; 2) Nothing's ever worth the cost; 3) Deal with it; 4) Do justice; 5) Love kindness; 6) Walk humbly with your God.