For some reason, we have some need “to go back”: Revisit, reiterate, resolve, return, renew, remember, rejoin. Re means “back,” and with every New Year comes a promise to resolve. For most, resolutions are unattainable promises based on previous shortcomings in will power. They are more focused on looking at past failures with a goal of avoiding them. For many people resolution means a re-solving of problems past.
We can’t avoid thinking about what we have been when we go about thinking what we wish to be. The wish is always in the context of a past. “To fully start anew” is difficult. That’s probably why most advisors would suggest looking to achieve small goals, the baby steps of progress. Even in light of some grand epiphany—some insight that seems like a gift from the gods—few human changes occur without the context of and tie to the past. Breaking with the past is more like pulling taffy than it is like breaking glass. Even during the “change” the past imposes an elasticity of return.
So, if you are one who has given yourself a list of resolutions for the new year, ask yourself how each promise is more rooted in your past than in your future.
We can’t avoid thinking about what we have been when we go about thinking what we wish to be. The wish is always in the context of a past. “To fully start anew” is difficult. That’s probably why most advisors would suggest looking to achieve small goals, the baby steps of progress. Even in light of some grand epiphany—some insight that seems like a gift from the gods—few human changes occur without the context of and tie to the past. Breaking with the past is more like pulling taffy than it is like breaking glass. Even during the “change” the past imposes an elasticity of return.
So, if you are one who has given yourself a list of resolutions for the new year, ask yourself how each promise is more rooted in your past than in your future.
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