The Folly of New Year Resolutions

David Aikman

The turkey has been digested, the gifts put away (or put on, if they are clothes), and the wrapping paper thrown out. After the Christmas gustatory extravaganza, it’s time for a few days of slow movement, of writing thank-you letters, and self-congratulatory exhalation. Christmas has been survived once more and life can continue its uneventful way forward. But no. Within a week of Christmas many people find themselves practicing yet another ancient cultural ritual, the challenge of New Year Resolutions. The end of one year and the beginning of another always offers two opportunities: to look back at the previous twelve months and ponder the ups and downs of that period; and to look ahead to the next and wonder what can be done differently then. By the office water cooler, over coffee in a friend’s office, on the phone late at night with a close friend, conversations year after year turn to the subject of New Year Resolutions.

“I’ll exercise more.” “I’ll eat fewer carbohydrates.” “I’ll watch less TV, read more books, stay in touch with old friends” are typical Resolutions. The fundamental premise of them all is that, in some way during the previous twelve months, the speaker consistently demonstrated a vice—failing to exercise, being too lazy to write letters or e-mails—that has rendered the Resolution necessary.

The folly of the whole idea of a New Year Resolution is that, by mere virtue of having a new numerical designation, the New Year will endow the speaker with the willpower for self-transformation that, quite obviously during the previous twelve months, he or she failed to exhibit. Does 2007 magically change the 2006 couch potato into the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the local gym? It’s doubtful. Health clubs notoriously experience a surge in membership in January that has become a trickle by March.

Still, people go on making New Year Resolutions, sometimes the same ones year after year. Why do we repeat this folly, when empirical evidence shows that statements of a desire to change, in and of themselves, almost never cause people to change their behavior in actuality?

English essayist Samuel Johnson is famously quoted for having said, of second marriages, that they constitute “the triumph of hope over experience.” That, surely, can also be said of New Year Resolutions. They amount, in a way, to a belief in magic—that the new number of the year will change the emotional and psychological makeup. They also, of course, constitute a less vicarious attribute: a belief in hope. Hope, of course, is what Christians have traditionally called “a theological virtue” (as in “faith, hope, and charity”). Yet it has its limitations. Perhaps, as talk about Resolutions comes around again, one should ponder another Englishman’s aphorism about hope. Francis Bacon said that hope “makes a good breakfast but a poor supper.” Exercise may not be needed after all.

Dr. Aikman is a Senior Fellow of The Trinity Forum and writer in residence at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia. His website is www.davidaikman.com.

11 Responses (comments are closed) • Provocations, Character and Ethics, Society, David Aikman, Thu 04 Jan 2007

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By Ben
Future home of Superbowl Champs
on 2007 01 29

and there. When I was thinking I was all alone, a ray of hope! It seems we romantics are -far- from alone, atleast not among the friends of TTF.

Speaking of hope, did someone cite “hope defered” in defense of something that is famous for yielding defered hopes? (I glanced thru, maybe I missed something.) I believe in try try again as much as the next guy, but a recent article I read somewhere reminded me about the wisdom in good expectations. And, since we can expect gusto mustered by newyear-novelty to wear, then we better base our hopes in more than that.

For what it’s worth, my experience is full of (4) :) kept NY’s resolutions. I believe in them.

By Simon Murphy
Johannesburg, South Africa
on 2007 01 19

Let’s also not forget that it was God who made years and seasons (Gen 1)! There is something about a fresh start that does encourage people to have a look inside and get courage to make decisions to adjust their lives. God’s mercies are new every morning, and every new year it is another fresh start. As Christians we can take advantage of that.

By Randall Condit
rcondit@mac.com
on 2007 01 18

I see the author is taking a lot of flack, probably unexpectedly. I agree that no calendar date has any magic power. I find value in New Year’s Day rolling around simply as a reminder that time is running out, and I might do well to take stock once again. This usually takes the form of glancing back over my journal entries for the past year, rather than making any list of resolutions. For me, the time to make a resolution is right when the need for change on an issue asserts itself.

By Simon Murphy
Johannesburg, South Africa
on 2007 01 18

The cynic is often right but never breaks out of mediocrity. Your article is highly disappointing for a Christian Website. Change comes through desire and decision to adjust after revelation of a preferred future. By God’s grace our decisions are not in vain, as sanctification is worked out in our lives. If the world adopted your cynical attitude, there would be no progress. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but where there is lack of vision (or hope) the people perish.

By James Perry
on 2007 01 17

The piece on new years resolutions was rather uncharacteristically negative & unconstructive for ttf. One of the things that I love about TTF is that it is inspiring, hopeful, thoughtful & constructive. I felt very dispirited having read about the hopelessness of new years resolutions. Not only is it a statement of the bleedin’ obvious, but the interesting bit is how one can affect lasting behavior change … I was very disappointed that this piece was a statement of the obvious which never got to the interesting part of the topic …

By Christine Pulliam
College Park, MD
on 2007 01 17

Aikman may also want to take issue with Jonathan Edwards for his famous “Resolutions,” about which he expressed a similar frustration in his inability to keep them. Christians are easily tempted to cynicism about our sinful nature which continually befalls us, thus the seeming “folly” of New Year’s Resolutions. But we are called to hope, not despair, about the human condition. There is more folly in giving in to our sinful desires than in striving against them.

By Nancy Lippert
Albuquerque, NM
on 2007 01 17

I find it interesting that many today lack the convictions and integrity to carry out wise decisions of obedience. We are told to let our yes, be yes, and our no’s, be no’s. New Years resolutions are hardly a substitute for a life of disciplined examination through prayer and study that has the possibility of bringing about a character of integrity that can stand firm in ones convictions. As fallen people we need far more to hope in than the change of the calendar. We need lives changed through a deep abiding relationship of hope in a Father who sent His Son to lift us up to a place we can not attain by our own power. It is through Him that we learn, grow, and reach goals beyond our imaginations. Last year He taught me how to love a small black church in Sabine Pass, Tx, which had been destroyed by Hurricane Rita. He taught me how to serve them, encourage them and know that in Him we can be more than we will ever realize in the hearts of others. We are made new and fresh. Last year, another broken resolution would have broken my heart, but serving this small church in obedience to God made my tired 50 year old heart “run with the horses”, Jer.12:5.

2006 was thrilling and I’m sure through daily obedience 2007 will be amazing also. Thank you.

By Daniel Rose
New York City
on 2007 01 17

The underlying concept of this statement is not only fallacious but demeaning and counterproductive as well.

High aspirations are noble and constructive and should be encouraged; and if we have failed to achieve them in the past, the answer is not to abandon them but to try harder in the future.

“Man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a Heaven for ?” is a more enabling concept than Dr. Johnson’s.

P.S. Let’s all keep trying, not only to lose weight and to exercise more, but to become better people and to lead more fulfilling and productive lives as well!

By Melanie Lacy Collier
on 2007 01 16

After surviving, by no real choice of my own, 3 dreadful years of obtaining a divorce and negotiating a nasty custody battle, hope was the subject of my annual Christmas letter. No doubt New Year’s Resolutions (aka hope) are symptomatic of our culture’s Christmas/holiday bipolar syndrome - manic highs and depressed lows. As a lifelong realist I have always been fascinated with those whose hope springs eternal while mine requires my nailing my faith to the nearest wall yet again. I wish hope were more natural to me. But in looking for a new recipe for hope for my life, I came up with what I believe to be some key ingredients. The first being fantasy. The human condition requires large doses of fantasy or fairy tale. G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy equates this desire and innate tendency with God and proof of His existence. The second ingredient no doubt is love, but I’m afraid there’s little of the pure stuff left and it is hard to find. And the 3rd ingredient I’ve identified is bucketfuls of wait. As I understand it, the Latin word for hope is the same as to wait. In my experience most of my hope is just that, waiting. Waiting is as boring as flour, but so essential. And from somewhere within me I have chosen to believe that Hope is the womb that bears Salvation, and her child is named Compassion. As such New Year’s Resolutions, although folly, are still good and evidence of it.

By Glen Thomas
Sacramento
on 2007 01 16

For thirty years on New Years’ day I have made a list of goals for the year. Yes, I have not always met them. But looking back I am amazed at how many I did meet, and further I am amazed by some goals that no longer seem relevant or important. I think the exercise of “goal-setting” is important personally, just as it is in business. My wife and I have gone to a number of marriage retreats. Did we put into practice everything? Of course not. But the exercise of reflection and ‘trying to do better’ is very important and useful, I believe.

By Ray Lucas
on 2007 01 16

Note Hebrews 11:1

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