I am Resolved

Like most people, I have often begun a new year on a path paved with good intentions. Also, like many people, I have lost sight of those intentions no more than halfway through the year. Some of the reason for this, I think, is that we often feel pressured to come up with something to do - some way to make ourselves better. We half-heartedly vow to lose weight or to exercise more, read more books, or learn something new, and as soon as we return to our normal busy activity levels following the more relaxed holiday season, we let our resolutions go. So in recent years, I've found myself teetering back and forth between trying to come up with a really good, doable resolution and giving up on resolutions all together. In the midst of this struggle, I've often settled on the fairly bland "I will try to be a better person." So non-committal. What does that mean, anyway?

So this year, I was really going to give up resolutions for good, when I had a lightbulb moment. Part of the trouble with resolutions, I think, is that they are so self-centered. As a result, they don't really ask any more of us than we already are. And nobody is counting on us as a result of our making them. Combine that concept with the fact that I had probably one of the most personally difficult times of my life in 2010, creating a climate in which I did quite enough self-centered reflection, and I felt it was high time that I start to focus on others.

Therefore, in the year of 2011, I am resolved to a year of giving thanks and writing letters. In all things, I will give thanks, and express my gratitude to those who make my life so rich. And in this world of asynchronous, sound-byte communication, I will strive to write letters and send mail, knowing that we do not often enough let people know that we are thinking of them, and that letters and packages are still so much more sincere than newsfeed comments. Sometimes these two actions will go hand-in-hand, and sometimes they will happen separately. Always, my intention will be that the recipients of these communications know how important they are. Letter writing is, sadly, a dying art, and I will do my best to keep it alive in 2011.