For most of us, the resolutions we need to make to bounce back from a difficult year don’t have to be hyperspecific.
For most of us, the resolutions we need to make to bounce back from a difficult year don’t have to be hyperspecific.
S ometimes, middle age just throws you a rough year. Even during a year with immense blessings and great consolations, a child has a major setback, a beloved member of the family dies, and the family routines that once gave life a pleasing rhythm are put out of joint; they’ve now become a drudgery. Maybe there’s income loss, and then a sudden corporate acquisition that throws the next ten years of your plans into doubt. Well, at the end of the bad year, we are told to reflect and to make resolutions and changes.
But where to look for some guidance? I remember the old Barnes & Nobles where the sections were marked off: Fiction, History, American History, Teen Fiction, Cooking, and Sports. A decade ago, we all laughed at the signs for Paranormal Teen Romance. Now it seems like there are two sections that are constantly colonizing more bookstore floor space. The first is Witchcraft, Wicca, and Paganism. The second is Self-Help and Personal Growth.
I’ve come to think of them as the gender markers of the post-Christian age. The sections might as well be titled, “For Girls, in the Absence of Sunday School” and “For Boys, in the Absence of Sunday School.” Faced with selves we struggle to master and to love, lacking the guidance to find ourselves loved by God (despite all the while being reliant on His grace), girls are bidden to become witches and summon the forces of the universe to console them and torment their enemies.
The self-improvement section is little better. It seems like an adjunct to the ever-expanding self-help podcasting scene. But, instead of casting spells and pampering themselves with daily affirmations, the self-improvement section tells boys to master their calendars and learn habits from the “Stoics” (more precisely, to learn from modern translators of the Stoics’ work who are not very stoical at all). Build “atomic habits” and keep a bullet journal, or just STAY HARD with masochistic workout guru David Goggins.
Build a digital “second brain” that somehow pans for gold in the endless stream of digital piss that you consume through your iPhone. Once you’ve filled up your task manager app, learned all the keyboard shortcuts to your online calendar, made an unattainably enormous reading list for the next year, installed several new atomic habits into an optimized morning routine, and psyched yourself up with videos of Mark Wahlberg living on East Coast time from California (he wakes up at 3 a.m., apparently?), then you can digitally detox.
Any of this stuff might be a little useful. Even the early Christians read Marcus Aurelius. And keeping your datebook organized seems like a good idea. But for most of us, the resolutions we need to make to bounce back from a difficult year don’t have to be this specific. Instead, they usually all fall into a few categories.
Make More Order in the World: Take a few minutes a day and put something right, something that you can see. Maybe it’s Jordan Peterson’s advice to clean your room. Maybe it’s having a shutdown routine where you actually clear your desk at the end of the workday and start entirely fresh the next day. This is where you can practice mind-over-matter.
Remember Your Body: This is where you can’t practice mind-over-matter. This is where you realize your mind is matter, and it has needs. You don’t just have a body; you are an embodied person. Nutrition, exercise, rest, and time in nature — beneath a real sun, with real animals, smelling real wet leaves and fresh spring flowers. Seriously, people neglect themselves while they set timers for watering their plants.
Enhance Your Social Life: Do something for someone else. Plan to see friends. Go on dates. Make social time sacred by having feasts. Cook a double portion and freeze some to deliver to a friend.
Be Still, With God: Put down the devil’s phone. Confront all the nasty things your inner monologue wants to say to you, and then lay it all down before Him who takes our burdens.