Word After Word

January 1, I always make 12 resolutions to not keep; I’ve always made resolutions. Since I first found out about them when I was a kid. My lists are always some version of BE MORE GOOD.  

I don’t think keeping them is the point. They act less as Instant Massive Great Changes in my life and more like guardrails. The resolutions keep me pointed in the right direction, moving me forward; they show me the edges of the path I want to be on.

Over the years, I have gotten more organized, lost weight and kept it off (thanks to Orlando), published books, made new friends, started yoga, given up desserts (thanks to allergy and intolerance, not resolutions, but still).

I’ve seen changes not because of the resolutions. I must make them for other reasons. So, I think they should be named something else. The Twelve Slippers. (It would be a euphemism). Or the Goals for the This Lifetime.

The word resolution comes from resolve; it means to reduce something to a simpler form.

Actually, resolutions complicate your life, they don’t simplify it. Any change you plan to make is going to consume huge amounts of space and time in your life. This year, maybe you should title your list “The Complications I will Invite into my Life this year.” That would be more accurate.

Resolve also means converting complex notions into simpler ones, the act of solving, the act of determining. But these promises we make to ourselves completely work against this language. The word solve comes from a word that means “to loosen, to free, to pay, to release, to atone for” and means, among other things, “to cause to go into solution.”

I’m sure many other people have already thought of this, but maybe this year the lists should be more like:

Ten Things I Will Let Go.

Five Things No Longer For Me.

Four Forgivenesses.

Eleven New Bad Habits To Welcome In.

Delicious Complications For Me

Solve and resolution imply we will find an answer or a remedy but stating a resolution ensures we will not find an answer or a remedy, but rather muscle forward, forbidding ourselves to do a thing we do.

Maybe instead of a year, I’ll use a day or an hour for my canvas this year. “Resolutions for seven o’clock this evening” has a nice ring.

The point is, resolutions complicate life. Life is already so very complicated. But I still need them. They make straight lines of chaos. I like them. They’re good to laminate!

Resolutions are more like imaginary pets than solutions. They take up a lot of room and require much attention if you keep them alive by thinking about