'I just believe in making changes'

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

- L.P. Hartley, "The Go-Between."

The New Year was edging its way in as the week after Christmas wore down, grinding by, somehow longer than usual despite a day off.

A certain girl, rife with an idealism almost alien to me these days, asked me what resolution I made for next year.

Good question, I thought. Lots of things need modified drastically in my life. I have a long list of aspirations, but I don't believe in resolutions.

Much in the same way, I've never quite fathomed those who feel the need to drink themselves silly as an annual ritual on New Year's Eve.

(I won't say I've never done either in the past; any fraternity brother who knew me in my college days would disprove at least one of those claims.)

Still, the twinned practices of New Year's resolution and intoxication -- sometimes, for an unlucky few I knew, followed briefly by incarceration -- seemed inextricably linked for many friends.

That makes sense. Generally, resolutions followed a long night on the town, those "never again" vows so many make and break in fairly quick succession. After all, the logic went, you had to sin to get saved.

Still, I question how bad the old year had to be -- and how scary the new year must be to some -- that they have to face it drunk.

Maybe it's just me getting older, but no thanks. These days, I need all the energy I can muster just to meet the demands of an average week. Making the changes necessary to become happier takes even more of a fuel reserve, and waking up sickly and sore is no way to face the day, or the year.

It's not that those evenings aren't fun, mind you. Spending a night out with friends is rarely a bad thing, and one of the few things I've promised myself I'll do more of in 2012.

That's resolve, however -- and not a resolution. One is an insistent belief things must change. The other is a hard promise to keep, made to oneself.

I believe in resolve, but I mistrust the idea of resolutions. Used unwisely, they seem unforgiving, all too ready to hinder change from the start.

Think of it this way: Resolution, as a word, evokes some hard determination and an ending, the way lawyers like me will often write someone and suggest "we hope things can be brought to an amicable resolution."

It's a sharp conclusion and a change. It's the idea that things begin and end neatly, and evolution comes predicated by a date on the calendar.

Could any idea be less effective, or more foredoomed to failure? Change rarely comes so simply.

So it is that millions will wake up New Year's Day and, aiming for higher ground, make promises to themselves they simply can't keep.

They'll swear off cigarettes and chocolate, aim to lose 20 pounds, or set goals with the best of intentions.

(You might remember where the road paved with good intentions supposedly leads.)

Those resolutions will end with the first secreted smoke, or the first cadged chocolate. When the weigh-in scale disagrees with our fondest hopes, we'll admit defeat and believe we're incapable of change.

Therein lies the problem.

Resolutions, as an idea, seem made to be broken. For many, they're shrugged off like an ill-fitting suit with the first stumble, proof maybe we won't get any better, and maybe we're stuck as who we are.

That's a hard lesson, especially during days when the world is cold and dark.

Resolve believes, even with a missed step, things can improve. That, I think, can carry us through.

"People can change anything they want to," my old hero Joe Strummer once said. "The future is unwritten."

When I started writing this column, the city was buried under the first snow of winter.

When I finished a day later, the snows were gone. The skies were blue, and the air unnaturally, blessedly warm, 50 degrees for the waning week of December.

So it is, the old saying goes, that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

The girl asked for my resolution again. I smiled.

"I don't believe in making resolutions anymore," I told her. "Slow and unsteady as it may be, I just believe in making changes."

Mark is a staff writer for the Greene County Daily World. He can be reached by email at stalcupmark@hotmail.com or by telephone at 847-4487.