The Art of Erik Stell

Like many people, I spend a considerable amount of time every January thinking about the topic of a New Year resolution. I have something of a love/hate relationship with the concept, which often leads me to make a resolution one year, and then refuse the next. I believe that starting the year by making a promise to ones self, a promise that typically gets broken before the month of January is even finished, sets a bad precedent for the remainder of the year.

Yet reaching is good, and the desire to self-improve is good. One should want to make themselves better, even if only for their own sake. This is something I tell myself every year, which is why when I do make a resolution; it’s geared toward that end. Last year, (like many years before it), I “resolved” to quit smoking.

I think I made it 3 whole days.

However, in April, I managed to put the cigarettes down and have not gone back. Now, the obvious implications aside, this was both unusual and significant for me. Never before had I managed to make a New Years Resolution really “work”. This was the first time I reached and actually caught what I was reaching for.

It felt kind of good.

So now, I am faced with another New Year, another “promise” to make to myself. Considering the dramatic changes success brought in the last year, I wonder what I should reach for next. I tossed the idea around in my head for weeks, and never really came up with anything until this realization.

It doesn’t really matter…

What you change or the reasons you change it don’t really matter. What matters is the act of building & keeping your integrity with the one person who always knows when you are lying, yourself. That’s what resolutions are for, & everything else is just a happy by-product.

That realization didn’t provide the answer I was seeking, but it made it easier to finally come to it: I resolve to have resolve, my resolution is to be resolute.

Happy New Year, everyone.