Resolutions We Don't Follow

Resolutions are kind of pathetic if you think about how they’re supposed to work. We fear that we won’t act wisely when the time comes, often because we’ve just let ourselves down, so we simply assure ourselves that we will act wisely next time, and we mean it. This is more a gesture of hope than anything — that a moment of gathered resolve and earnest vows now will somehow cause us to possess the necessary wisdom and discipline later, in some future moment of truth when that promise is tested.

The resolution is an attempt to control our future selves from the present, by simple decree.