Why New Year Resolutions are Necessary Failures for People With Parkinson's Disease and Others

As with many others, I struggle with making New Year resolutions. It was not always so. At one time, pre-Parkinson's disease, I was very organized about planning what I wanted to accomplish each year. But lately I have joined the ranks of those who shun the practice of making promises as the calendar flips a digit (so to speak). Despite the fact that people with Parkinson’s have a hard time predicting how the degenerative disease will limit their abilities, that is not the reason. I decided to come clean on my own reasons, to the extent that I have discerned my own motivation, or lack thereof. I am going one step further. I will bare all (well, not all) and post some of my resolutions here for all to see, for reasons I will set out below.

New Year resolutions are typically worthwhile goals. Take for instance U.S. President Obama's resolution last year to stop smoking. Yet many, if not most, of us either forego the opportunity or engage in setting goals knowing full well we will fail. Some people even scoff at the tradition. Most do not announce their personal resolutions to anyone. Despite my usual positive outlook, I too find it difficult these days to commit to a list of annual resolutions. Why? One reason might be that the statistics are against you. About 50% of people polled made resolutions last year, and yet only 25% achieved success.
 
Some might say it is just laziness. However, let me suggest that fear might be the real enemy of resolve. Laziness, as the entrepreneur, blogging guru, Seth Godin, said, is fear. We (that pronoun includes me) seem to fear commitment to change, regardless of how beneficial that change might be. We fear failure and our own lack of discipline necessary to achieve success. We fear that the stark reality of our lack of desire to change will be made known, that our frail humanity will be exposed for what it is. We fear the judgment (express, implicit or imagined) of others or ourselves. Fear is the foil of good intentions, thus discarding them like cobblestones with which the road to hell, or at least one’s unrealized potential, is often paved.

I was reminded by the January 1 passing of a dear, faithful reader of this blog that life is precious and dare not be wasted. Whatever your spiritual views may be, we all somehow know that life is to be cherished not squandered. We recognize that we are gifted with a few years of living in order to make the best of them. Our clocks point out the minutes we have used up. Our hearts beat out the rhythm of a song that will end some day. Each breath signals another moment’s passing. We understand all that and yet we fear living intentionally. We avoid full commitment to a plan that would see our time and talents spent in a worthy manner. We so often choose to live randomly except for the hard-wired stuff like sleeping and eating.

We need to have the courage of our convictions and throw off cowardice, the offspring of fear. We must commit to those dreams that dwell in hidden places within our hearts. We have to recognize our need for strength and encouragement beyond ourselves. We would best acknowledge we are prone to fail, give up or lose our resolve so that we might recognize our need for the resources that friends and family can provide. I cannot help but believe that if we all made at least one New Year resolution, and shared that with someone who was committed to helping each of us to accomplish that goal, we would all be happier and more likely to live intentionally.

So here goes my experiment. Sharing my New Year resolutions (or at least some of them) with you who may read this, with the belief that in doing so I can more likely achieve them.

1. I will post written encouragement on Positively Parkinson’s at least two times each week during 2011.
2. I will prepare the necessary manuscript material for a Positively Parkinson’s book proposal to be considered for publication, and submit that material to publishers before the end of 2011.
3. I will exercise at least 3 times a week to offset the stiffness and inflexibility resulting from my Parkinson’s disease.
4. I will spend at least 15 minutes each day in quietness.

Now all I need is discipline, encouragement and the support of others to make up for my human fallibility. What about you? Especially those who face a future threatened by PD or some other challenge, what will you commit to? Despite the odds, are you prepared to commit out loud to a New Year resolution? As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”