The Resolution

For the first time in several years, I have held on to and achieved a New Year's resolution. Though I know very well that I am lazy and not disposed at all to adhere to any resolutions I have ever made (shape up, act more lady-like, keep in touch with friends, make new friends, learn a new language, learn to play an instrument... the list is endless), I persist every New Year's Eve in creating a long list of virtues I must adopt, talents I must polish, tasks I must accomplish and so on. Year after year I have tried in earnest to stick to these resolutions, and year after year I have found myself wanting in the will-power and drive it takes to take any of these resolutions to fruition.

True to form, this New Year's Eve I sat down and resolved to be the epitome of perfection. The subtle and charming woman I have always wanted to be. The woman whose intelligence shines forth with such brilliance that the rest of the world looks incredibly like a confrerie of idiots. The supermodel. The kind, giving, unassuming Madonna. The woman of infinite variety. Charming plans all, but ones that I had no hope of ever living to see come true. One resolution that I made, that I have been making for the last ten years without fail, and without doubt of absolute failure was that I would read at least one book a month... twelve books in the whole year. This was one resolution that I always bitterly regretted having to give up because reading is one of the greatest pleasures of my life. I just had not gotten around to reading as much either because I was too busy or because I was too lazy, and very probably both.

I set out this year, like the rest of the decade resolving to read, and not doubting that I would not. On New Year's Day, I began the year's reading with Kamala Das' My Story. And I haven't stopped. I haven't read nearly as much as I would have liked to, but I have crossed the target I set for myself. I've read thirteen books this year and am simultaneously reading two more. I hope to get at least seventeen done by New Year's Eve this year. It might not seem much to anyone else, but to me this is momentous. 'Tis the set of the soul, that determines the goal...

"One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife."

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox