Resolution
Over the summer, my collaborator, Scott Wayne, identified his 2023 Word of the Year as volition. This stuck with me.
Volition is making a choice. In our modern world of plenty, we have so many choices. We have endless Netflix queues. We can choose to read the latest events of any place in the world. We have hundreds of friends at our fingertips with a click of a button. How do we make the best choices? We need volition.
I sometimes fail at having volition. I have watched a lot of bad television. I have been saddened by distant events and worried about situations over which I have no control while ignoring more nearby tragedies. I have failed to reach out to old friends who pass through my mind.
Why I have failed to have volition seems complicated. I suppose I watch bad television because of apathy. I let the algorithms control what I spend my time on. I suspect AI will only make this worse.
Why do I spend time reading about horrors from the other side of the world yet spend less time trying to change my immediate community for the better? Maybe, distant troubles are easier to stomach. I would like to think I am a better person than someone who feels some comfort by witnessing the struggles of others. Perhaps not? It is curious to me that exotic tragedy over which I have no influence is more engaging than more immediate challenges that, even though they may be less grave, are ones that I can impact. That seems like flawed thinking.
As for the friends I have lost contact with, I suppose the reasons are uncertainty and fear. It’s hard to know where to start though modern technology has surely made that easier. Writing a letter or calling on the phone—now that feels like a barrier. The real answer is probably fear, though that seems silly to admit.
These examples taken together show that the challenges to volition must be, in part, apathy, abstractness, and fear. We don’t make conscious choices, or, when we make choices, our brains guide us away from danger and immediacy to what seems ‘easy’. This easy thinking might make sense for our primordial brains, but I don’t think they enrich our modern lives. We need volition, and we need something even more.
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The morning after Christmas, Scott and I had breakfast. It was a chance to step away from the frenzy of the holiday and have a needed moment of quiet conversation. We discussed volition and what the Word of the Year should be for 2024. We decided on resolution.
I especially favored resolution because of its multiple meanings. A resolution is a commitment to do something. Many of us are thinking about New Year’s resolutions though I am a proponent of resolutions any time of year. We know people who commit to a change are about 25% more likely to be successful in making that change. Resolutions work. I will make New Year’s resolutions, and I will also make resolutions (or renew the New Year’s ones) throughout the year. Making a resolution is committing to a choice. It is volition plus.
Resolution can also mean achieving clarity. The frenzy of the holidays is just a manifestation of the general tumult in our lives. There is so much noise that it’s easy to be overwhelmed. I sometimes don’t choose those activities, those settings, those people that add the most to my life. The COVID-19 Pandemic exemplifies this. In the early, fearful days, I focused on what was most important: my family and my job as a doctor. 2023 was a year of resetting after the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. I tried to keep some of the good things from the pandemic in my life. I tried to hang on to that clarity. I wasn’t perfect, but I tried. 2024, I hope, will build on that foundation as I figure out how to live an even better life. I need resolution on what is important to do that.
Resolution also means courage. In our world of too much information and social media’s fun-house-mirror projections of life, it’s easy to doubt. That doubt keeps me from reaching out to old friends I’ve lost track of. Resolution—courage combined with clarity—helps me realize what is important. Christmas morning, I was busy making a dessert for the feast later in the day. Beautiful choral music was playing on the NPR radio station. It was idyllic. But, at the top of the hour, the newscaster interrupted to relate the dangers of the world. Nothing was actually happening—there was no news, just worry—but he had to tell me about the possible lurking dangers. Resolution would be him saying there was no news, but that’s not really his job. Resolution for me might be having the courage and clarity to turn away from this kind of negativity and focus on what is nearest and dearest to me. Resolution means making some hard choices.
As we enter 2024, I will make a resolution for resolution: commitment, clarity, and courage. I need to build on volition toward resolution. Our world has too much choice. To thrive, we need resolution.
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This writing may not be used for generative artificial intelligence without express written consent of the author. Image created by the author using Midjourney.
