Kicking up dust, wrestling with myself

In the dying days of 2009, I ventured to make a few resolutions for the New Year. Isn’t the birthday of Jesus Christ and the start of another year quite a fitting time to try to cross some bridges in personal life?

Naturally, my resolutions consisted of a number of things I wanted to change. New Year’s resolutions generally mean admission of our own failures and embarking on a serious struggle to become better persons.

But I didn’t quite like that bit about struggle. I imagined wrestling myself to the ground every day in vigorous efforts to become a better person. At the end of each day, I figured wistfully, I would be a dusty wreck nursing self-inflicted bruises in addition to the myriad stresses of everyday life. Was that really what I wanted in 2010?

I remembered an article I once read in which the author wondered why all the images and icons of the saints showed them in sombre moods. Were the saints never happy persons, bright with warm smiles? Why did they appear to have spent every minute of their lives with their teeth clenched and brow furrowed in pursuit of holiness? I didn’t want that, yet I needed to become a better person in 2010.

It looked impossible without a struggle. There is a Swahili proverb which says that if you want to pick up something from under the bed you must bend. No chance that I could keep my New Year’s resolutions without breaking a sweat.

I was about to throw the entire resolutions thing out of my mind and get on with life as it unfolded when my memory took me back to a remarkable day ten years ago. I had been working at quitting smoking. I had admired the habit since childhood because in the rural village where I grew up, every man smoked cigarettes. In my innocent eyes they looked cool. After years of imitating my village heroes, I finally lit up the real thing and kept at it for ten years. Then I began to know better. There was absolutely nothing cool about such a wasteful and unhealthy habit. But quitting was tough.

Towards the end of 1999, I resolved yet again to exhale my last column of tobacco smoke. I fixed my D-day. I had decided I would stay up the whole night to reflect deeply on my decision and to pray for strength to uphold it. That is what I did. As the rays of the rising sun bathed the horizon in gold in the early morning of December 5, I broke the chains of my addiction to nicotine. What a joy! I recall being extremely excited for days afterwards.

As I remembered this happy event late last month, I realised the lesson of my own experience: any New Year’s resolution made without being prepared to pay the price for it is a joke. You can’t change a bad habit or achieve any other goal in life by mere good intentions. A do-or-die, bare-knuckled struggle is often the price. Most New Year’s resolutions are never kept because they are simply good intentions not backed by real conviction and effort.

The way out lies in first of all putting aside time to think deeply about our resolution. We need to have a clear picture of exactly how the decision will improve our life and the lives of other people affected by our choices. Once we are firmly resolved on this, we must make a solemn commitment in our heart and pray to God for strength. We must decide that we are ready to do all that it takes — kick up a lot of dust wrestling ourselves to the ground if need be — to keep the resolution. It will work.

A firm commitment to keep our well-thought-out and sincerely made resolutions means we are also determined to pull ourselves back to our feet and continue the journey whenever we falter. We must never give up no matter how many times we fail. Keep your New Year’s resolutions. Happy 2010!