Yes, this is yet another column about New Year’s resolutions. It’s practically inescapable. The first day of a new year is such a natural opportunity to commit oneself to some new (or enhanced) discipline or deprivation. Many of us make resolutions to eat better, exercise more, consume less alcohol, quit smoking, pray more regularly or otherwise embark on some self-improving agenda.
But it’s almost as common for those resolutions to flag and even, alas, fail. The full gyms on Jan. 1 will be half empty by Feb. 1. January rejuvenation is followed by February failure. So, while this is a column about New Year’s resolutions, it’s more about chucking the very notion of resolution. Perhaps this is a column about New Year’s irresolution.
Saying it doesn’t make it so
In an episode of the TV comedy series “The Office,” protagonist Michael Scott has found himself in financial straits through a series of misadventures. His co-worker Creed Bratton advises Michael to declare bankruptcy. “Bankruptcy is nature’s do-over,” Creed says. “It’s a fresh start; it’s a clean slate.” Inspired by Creed’s advice, Michael walks into the office and shouts, “I … declare … BANKRUPTCY!”, as though simply “declaring” it made it so. Of course, bankruptcy is a precise and complicated legal process by which debts are restructured and sometimes discharged. More importantly, the felt need to enter bankruptcy proceedings is often (though not always) an indication that we have bad economic and fiscal habits. These bad habits are not resolved merely by having some debts reorganized or forgiven. The long-term solution is not in the discharge of debts, but rather in modifying our habits to be consistent with financial stability.
Michael’s belief that his problems were solved simply by “declaring bankruptcy” is not unlike our tendency to declare a New Year’s resolution without considering the practices and habits that put us in an undesirable state in the first place. We think we can stop some detrimental behavior — or begin some salutary one — simply by resolving to do so. Like Michael, we make a grand declaration but do not make any intentional change in the practices and habits that are not consistent with the change we seek. We think we can stop making bad choices without becoming the type of person that makes fewer bad choices.
Be intentional rather than resolute
But that’s not how the moral life works. One reason we so often fail in our determination to carry through with new commitments is that we approach them with the wrong mindset. Rather than thinking in terms of “resolutions,” perhaps we should think of them as New Year’s “intentions.”
I realize, of course, that “resolve” is the word that most of us use when we say our act of contrition in the Sacrament of Reconciliation: We resolve to sin no more and avoid the near occasion of sin. I am not suggesting that resolutions are bad things. Moreover, I concede that in some contexts, the terms “resolution” and “intention” are so similar that they are virtual synonyms. But if you’ll bear with me, I’ll explain how an intention can be distinguished from a resolution.
Thinking in terms of intentions might be a better approach for making new practices and disciplines stick because the language of intentionality shifts the discussion from a mere pronouncement to a moral commitment.
We are not changed morally by a declaration that we are changed morally. Rather, we must begin by orienting our proposed reform toward some good that transcends the particular practices consistent with that good. In other words, our practices must be intentionally ordered toward and by the virtues that constitute a moral life.
To be successful in our resolution to drink less alcohol, for example, the resolve must be rooted in an intention to be temperate persons generally. A temperate person will use alcohol moderately. But a person who uses alcohol moderately is not necessarily a temperate person. If our “intention” in drinking less is to lose weight, for example, or not to wake up with a hangover, it is misplaced. Such an intention will not contribute to growing in the virtue of temperance. And, thus, it will not help us develop the disciplined practices that become the habits of a temperate person.
Michael Scott could not get his fiscal house in order until he rid himself of the encumbrances that led to his financial straits, replacing them with intentional practices consistent with economic responsibility. That is, until he intended to exercise habits consistent with economic responsibility, his “resolution” of bankruptcy was nothing more than empty rhetoric.
And thus for us as we approach 2025 with a desire to stop doing bad things and begin doing good things. Merely making resolutions to stop (or begin) will seldom work. Rather, our resolution must be rooted in an intention to become the kinds of people who don’t do the bad things and do the good things. As Catholic Christians, if our resolution is not rooted in the intention to love God, it will be, as St. Paul reminds us, little more than a “resounding gong or a clashing cymbal” (1 Cor 13:1).
