Continuing Resolution, 2020
Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
Swimmers, I made two resolutions last week: 1). to write fiction before I dig into anything else for the day and 2). to find a voice teacher and start singing lessons.
How’s it going?
Imperfectly. I’m failing to consistently perform what I’ve resolved. Stupid Franklin and the second halves of his virtue definitions.
“The only source whence any thing like consolation or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and leave her less to regret when it were gone.2 ”
Like Jane Austen’s Emma, I can only resolve to keep trying to do better. I have written every day and am making good progress on a story but I have not always succeeded in writing before sparring with my anxiety.
(Okay, fine. If you must know, there has only been one day that I just sat down and pushed aside everything else that could potentially freak me out.)
I have rescheduled commitments that would conflict with my morning writing hours but I’m very much struggling with resolution. Which I suppose I’m more or less fine with because I likely wouldn’t learn much if I didn’t wrestle with it. I may be performing what I resolve with fails (sorry Benny, old boy), but I think there’s value in trying and failing and trying again. So I’ll dismiss perfectionism so I can live to write another day.
And those singing lessons? I’ve sought recommendations for teachers and have some of my lovely new friends scanning their networks for me. I don’t have any leads at the moment and if I’m honest, I know it’s because I’m scared. But since Joe low-key left a brochure for one of those swanky boa constrictor massage parlors on the counter,* I had better pull myself together and choose my own adventure.
While I continue working on improving myself by practicing resolution, I will be considering how this virtue could benefit community. If you have thoughts or opinions on resolution as a community virtue, I’d love to hear them in the comments below or on social media. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with some practical advice on approaching resolutions from Neil Gaiman:
“And for this year, my wish for each of us is small and very simple.
And it’s this.
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.3 ”
*I’m joking. Joe knows I scale walls at a mere picture of a danger noodle. And since he’s the one who’d have to talk me down, such a brochure would be more trouble than it’s worth.
Notes:
Illustration by Hugh Thomson from Emma.
1. “The Masque of Pandora, VIII In the Garden.” The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: In Four Volumes, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Vol. II, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1885, p. 456.
2. Austen, Jane. “Chapter XII.” Emma: a Novel, New Edition ed., Richard Bentley & Son, 1886, p. 365.
3. Gaiman, Neil. “Another Year.” Neil Gaiman's Journal, 31 Dec. 2016, 7:25 PM, journal.neilgaiman.com/2016/12/another-year.html.