New Year's Resolutions
Are New Year’s resolutions really necessary? Are these lists of dos and don’ts really needed in discarding our bad habits? Is there power in it to change us for the better?
Most people make their New Year’s resolutions days or months before the new year. Some make long lists, and others have only three or four.
Lists are our guides or reminders. They ought to be followed, but not compulsory. If you can follow your list, it is very fine. But if you cannot follow it, it is still fine – there are still many new years to make resolutions.
The making of new year’s resolutions is a sign of our acceptance that we do have defects in our character, and our desire to correct them is the obvious manifestation of our concern for people around us. We want to change because of our families, loved ones and friends.
But why do we make resolutions on new year’s eve only? Can we not make a resolution on any day of the year?
Indeed, in most cases, new year’s resolutions are just new year’s resolutions. After the new year’s eve, it is forgotten and gone.
Do people purposely forget their resolutions, or is it really hard to follow them? When resolutions are hard to follow, people tend to forget them very soon. For what is the use of wasting time in pursuing them if you think that you cannot make it? So we forget them and condone our weakness by comparing ourselves to the many who had similarly failed to fulfill their resolutions. It is a better attitude to condone and forgive yourself of having been unable to fulfill your resolutions than to blame yourself and be bitter in life. But it is much better to be able to disciplined yourself and be the master of your destiny.
The will, determination and discipline are the keys to fulfilled new year’s resolutions. Any one of these can do, but the best result is achieved quickly and effectively when they are used together.
To be able to control ourselves during times of temptations, such as to forget outright our resolutions when we see them unattainable, is a function of our brain, specifically the frontal lobe. People who have no temperance in eating and drinking have defective frontal lobes. And you might be interested to know what causes it.
Our brain’s frontal lobe is the center of wisdom, conscience, will, and spirituality. It is damaged by flesh meat eating, milk and sugar mixture, caffeine, nicotine, excitotoxins, and other toxic substances that we get from all processed foods or junk foods. Watching television for long hours, and rock music can also destroy our frontal lobes.
So, it is like a vicious cycle. If we cannot control our appetites, we damage our frontal lobes, and we become less spiritual. When our spirituality is weak, we are unable to choose what is good and what is evil, and it will be hard for us to know if our characters are within the bounds of good morals. Remember, in making our lists of new year’s resolutions, we need to know what are our bad traits that we should discard. Granted that we are able to make the list honestly, we need our will to accomplish them. But an impaired frontal lobe results in impaired will as well. And without the will, we cannot accomplish anything.