New year, old you

Another year is about to end with the beginning of a new one. One cannot help but feel a certain apprehension, perhaps, that nothing much has changed in life and more importantly in oneself.

But this restlessness, if ever it continues to linger in a person’s conscience, is a good and healthy sign. It is the sign of never being satisfied about oneself and a constant desire to outdo oneself.

Surely, this attitude to life isn’t only borne of a professional outlook, one’s desire to climb the social ladder or simply improving life along mere quantitative considerations. Man, to be sure, exist for something more?

Indeed, man’s existence cannot be reduced to a simple arithmetic equation or to the pure indulgence of material pleasure and want. All these, if ever, only go to show that only one thing can satisfy man—for which this lifetime would count little to attain—and that is eternal happiness.

This is obviously not some abstract happiness in some cosmic or cyber void. If man seeks to improve his self, then it reveals a search for happiness that contains personal traits. Thus, his happiness is only achieved in the sense of seeking it for himself in someone.

It would be, naturally, too simplistic to state—although this is as simple as it gets—that this “natural or creational sense for the happiness state” has been hardwired into our being by no one other than God.

Hard as we may try, (many who have tried so hard to deny this truth, are already forgotten), man tends to seek something or better yet, someone who has promised him something that only that someone can give, because that someone is eternal, and that eternal someone happens to be God.

But let us for our concerns “reduce” eternity, so to speak, in more practical terms. That is, how can we approximate ourselves to something beyond us in the present? I would like to say that this is achieved by making resolutions, daily and concrete ones.

At the tail of an ending year, we are often led to look behind us to see what shimmers in our accomplishments or what darkens our spirits due to our failures. All these put together urge us to strive for the better us, and this is achieved —to begin with—by the intellectual desire to right the wrongs, and to do better the rights. Thus, we formulate what are casually known as “new year’s resolution.”

Wonderful as this may be, it presents a rather ambitious position for any one. Imagine one’s hopeful attempt to change something (i.e. a habit or disorder) in a given instant which for an entire year, that is, for 365  days he has not put much effort into practicing or addressing?

It is in this light that I believe that such “yearly resolutions” or “projects” are doomed to a natural death, even as one begins to formulate them. They have hardly started to give any brilliance when they are snuffed out as quickly as the short-lived “bang!” of year-end fireworks, which leave noting but the distasteful pungent residue of ashes and black smoke. So how should the “old us” formulate resolutions?

• Strive for what is concrete, and this means not remaining in what is inspiring but what helps us acquire virtue (i.e., patience, diligence, magnanimity, etc.).

• Go for character and not personality. Remember, our personality is something given. It is a fixed variable that we are born with and relates to our temperament. Character is what can be forged, formed, improved and given for the others.

• Constancy. Without a constant check on ourselves regarding a particular area or points, then we would revert to mere sentimentality in our attempt to be virtuous. Others make a checklist, or before wrapping up the day, it is helpful to reserve some minutes to silently check how we have achieve in this goal and how to reinforce it the next day.

• Think of the others. Some of the best resolutions are those that are oriented towards helping others. We cannot be, even with the best of intentions, too focused on ourselves in improving. Sometimes, we even advance more because of our resolve to help others.