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.

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:

*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.