Just one more quick good-natured jab at New Year’s resolutions: a crowd-sourced New Year’s Resolution Generator. Users sent in their personal resolutions, which were added to a randomized display of things we all should be doing in 2011. Some are fun and good natured, like the Vanilla Ice inspired “Stop. Collaborate (and Listen).” Others revealed a deep sense of guilt and shame about how off track their lives were.
Some more poignant examples of guilt-inspired New Year’s Resolutions: Forgive her (also: Forgive him), Carpool, Learn to Cope, De-Clutter, Learn to Commit, Avoid Drama, Be Spontaneous (ironic?), Wake Up Earlier, Move on, and Be Spiritual.
It’s an interesting and sobering experiment. For every guilt-themed resolution, you see the evidence of a life lived in “quiet desperation.” Even for non-guilt themed resolutions, you have the stark contrast between hopeful expectation and deflated reality (for every resolution like “Enjoy the Outdoors,” there is a life being lived by a person who does not “Enjoy the Outdoors,” and probably won’t by 2012).
So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:21-25)
Sign up for the Mockingbird Newsletter
COMMENTS
Leave a Reply
