Ruminations-On Resolutions 2026

This started out as a journal entry and I thought it might be worthwhile to turn it into a post because I had been an abysmal failure at meeting my resolutions, and I wanted to know why?

This is the time of year for making New Year’s Resolutions. There are two natural human instincts at work, the first is the natural instinct to improve: who we are and of course our standing in society, it does not matter whether it is intrinsic or extrinsic improvements that we seek, we want to be better; the second instinct is to stake the change to a time milestone, the end of the year is as convenient of a time as any.

I, unfortunately, have made resolutions continually for many years; indeed, one can say that I am remarkably successful at failing in my resolutions. Every resolution I have made over the years has met an ignominious end.

There are quite a few traps embedded in this decision to make resolutions. Unfortunately, they all converge to ensure the resolutions are set up to fail.

This decision is usually made on the spur of the moment, post holiday and under pressure, therefore very little forethought is given to the resolution, what are the course of action that are necessary which make the resolution successful, what would success look like at the completion of the resolution, what are the termination condition for a successful resolution, and who is the ultimate arbiter of whether the resolution is successful. The last question: who is the ultimate arbiter of whether the resolution is successful is the most important one. Usually, the answer is the person who creates the resolution, they are usually the only one whose opinion matters. They are also the ones who ultimately control the circumstances underlying the challenges presented by the resolution. They could also game the circumstances to ensure that they succeed — which is, in certain perspective, not a horrible thing to do — but then again, why jump through these hoops of making and working to meet the resolution if the outcome is pre-emptively gamed to be successful?

On the other hand, there are some who goes to the opposite extreme: they are unforgiving with themselves that no matter what they did, it wasn’t enough to meet their self-assigned resolution, no matter how lenient.

How the person decides the state of the resolution as time slips by is actually a reflection of their state of mind and telegraphs any ulterior motives that they may have. Some sees making resolutions as an opportunity to virtue signal, to advertise to the people closest to them of their own self-professed virtues, which many times translates to a dramatic case of nemesism: frustration, anger, or aggression directed inward, toward oneself and one’s way of living. Regardless of whether the nemesism is a preordained and orchestrated demonstration of virtue signaling or whether the nemesism is an expression of one’s inner turmoil, the result is drama that cries to be the center of attention.

We will take this nemesism and redirect it towards our own perceived lack of will-power, discipline, resolve, and many other self-prescribed mental deficiencies, it is an understandable human response, but it is also misdirected and damaging to who we are and who we wish to be. This impulse to self-flagellate makes it even more insidious when we take a deeper dive into how we arrived at these resolutions.

Resolutions are decisions that are made extemporaneously and based on the accumulation of memories, mostly negative — because that is how our subconscious works — and the biased snapshots of our observation at that instant and in that place. The biased past and fleeting present are never accurate basis for prediction of future reality. We are biased as observers because we have skin in the game, we are emotionally committed to a perspective that does not represent the entire reality, simply different perspectives of reality. We are thus making resolutions based on our own biased opinions of ourselves — which is our prerogative of course — but it amounts to lying to ourselves. But why should we care about basing our resolutions on incomplete picture of our reality? If it does not hurt anyone else, what does it matter?

It does matter, because an extemporaneous, emotionally fraught, decision made under limited perspective — even though it is not very different from how we make everyday decisions — means that we are taking the most easily available and expedient option and bypassing the most difficult route: changing habits and permanently changing behavior. We are so interested in revolutionarily changing ourselves by taking drastic and ill-considered actions, yet we are not committed to permanently and evolutionarily changing ourselves.

I often envy people who make resolutions because of their good intentions and optimism. Being the age that I am, I have become more skeptical if not completely cynical of my ability to make those lifelong changes instantaneously. Indeed, I am getting better at adapting to changing my habits by taking my time because I highly doubt that the snapshot of my life in this place at this moment in time is representative of who I am or who I will be; I don’t believe that my long-term future will be forever predicted by what I see in front of me at the present.

My present clarity will fade, blur, and eventually disappear over time. My view of who I am and who I might become will ameliorate because I will be changed, the people around me will be changed, the circumstances that surrounds me will be changed, and the world will be changed. While I may have the best intentions to make resolutions at this time and in this place, it is foolhardy to believe that I have serendipitously stumble upon a definitive solution to all my worldly and otherworldly ills.

I can be a defeatist and vow never to improve myself with the advancement of time, but that is counter to my own humanity. It does not matter what the time scale of advancement is — it could be as short as microseconds and as long as a lifetime — being hopeful and curious about how we will turn out as we grow up is essential to our evolution to be valuable human beings. We need to, however, be ever cognizant of our own evolution and growth to work toward getting better, more moral, and virtuous in all aspects of life.

The difference between cynicism and optimism, nihilism, and an idealism, being an overly constrained defeatist and a under constrained metaphorical bull in a China shop is to realize that there is no need to permanently reside at the extremes, the range of philosophical and emotional positions is a continuum. The possible positions are all dependent upon how we critically dissect and analyze; and we need to realize that it is us who decide on whichever position in the continuum we reside. We decide through our past — experiences and knowledge, emotions — and where we are in the present. Our future is unknowable and unpredictable, rather than wasting our energies predicting the unknowable, we need to make the best well rounded decision and execute and accept the consequences of our decisions — good and bad — while being nimble and flexible enough to adjust along the way. The past tells us where we were, it does not predict the future. We do this by taking a long-term view and changing our habits rather than making resolutions.

Taking stock of our past and present is a natural habit for humans. It is good habit to be aspirational and to hope but extrapolating and prognosticating a deterministic future based upon who we were and who we are now into who we hope to become is superstition and an illusory exercise in futility. Not a good habit to get into and contrary to what we ultimately aspire to.

That is my story and I am sticking with it.