Resolution...

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. It also happens to be the first day of the new year. Questions and expectations flood me. What will my goals be this year? What great things could possibly be in store? What resolutions will frame my actions in the moving picture of this coming annum?
As is my habit, I forge a list of aims for myself, one I will inevitably come back to with a critical eye in roughly 365 days (assuming I make it another 365 days--one never knows). Year after year I attempt to realize these goals which cover such aspects of my life as spiritual, physical, financial, career and general. Year after year, I tend to nail the physical and general, yet fail all the others. Rather than be honest with myself about what I truly want and where my focus truly is, I have decided this year to remove the categories. No specific order, no specific designation other than being something I feel like I should accomplish. We shall see if this works.
I read on a web site that at best 17% of people succeed in their New Year's resolutions. Although I have no idea how or why this should be a trustworthy percentage, it sounds roughly correct, if not just a bit generous to me. You see, I have lived long enough to stare into the endless gulf between intentions and actions. If I had a nickel for every one I knew who really wanted to stop smoking or lose that stomach or reconcile that relationship, my only financial goals would be to research an organization before I write it a monstrous check. We all have goals, desires and intentions. January 1st is just a convenient date to put off going after them until. Once it passes, most people promptly forget the build-up and settle back to the path that got them to the place they had been resolving to vacate. Not to mention the fact that, a few months down the road, there is another January 1st.
It comes down to discipline and desire. Both are essential. From what I have seen, most people have no shortage of desire. It is discipline that eludes them, frustrates their efforts. I read a brief treatise called 212, the Extra Degree recently. The image is that water is hot at 211 degrees, but at 212, it boils. Such is the case with us. The steam of boiling can move even the most stubborn of trains. At 211, though certainly a solid and well-intentioned heat, you have motionlessness.
Myself, I have discipline. It's odd that I never went into the military, for such is my dedication to routine and principle. What I lack is desire. Many times I have begun a project I felt rather excited about, and many times I have failed to complete it, not because I couldn't set aside the time or the resources, but because I just quit caring. Perhaps I spent all the interest and was ready to invest in something else. It really doesn't' matter. This project which I am currently undertaking will necessitate both discipline and desire to complete. 'Dangerously' is not just a reference to the inevitable onslaught of opinions I will espouse herein. Completion is dangerous. Success is dangerous. Happiness is dangerous. Nothing, however, is more dangerous than failing to try. History doesn't number the creative casualties of unproductive lives. If it did, it would outweigh a million 20th centuries worth of war dead. On that pleasant note, here goes nothing!

Today's post has been brought to you under the influence of Southern Tier's 2XIPA.