New Year’s Resolution for a Perfectionist
New Year’s Day. It’s a time for reflection on the events of the year past, on successes and failures, plans and surprises, and it’s also a chance to look ahead. A brand-new year! Who, on January 1, doesn’t see a fresh new year as at least a little bit of a gift? That’s what New Year’s resolutions are all about: resolving to make this new year better, in some way, than the last. True, some people don’t make resolutions, and a lot of people make and break them, usually right around February. (Don’t grudge even a month of betterment! Over a lifetime, that adds up.) But while the cycle of resolve-and-break makes some people cynical about the whole thing, I find it oddly uplifting. Our desire to make resolutions speaks to our self-knowledge and our need to grow – even if we sometimes don’t know how to put our desire for a better year into practice.
So, then what’s my New Year’s resolution? It’s simple (deceptively so): to spend less time doing, and more time being.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of getting things done – whether they are big or small, corporate or personal, entertaining or tedious. Papers to grade, a book to write, friends to meet, fencing to practice, deadlines to meet, laundry to do, classes to prepare, emails to answer… There is no end. There never will be an end. What then?
In truth it is not the doing of the work that matters, but the process of doing it. Who am I, and who am I becoming, in this work? If, in the activity that I am engaged in, I am moving closer to the Source of all that is good, if I am becoming more filled with grace and truth, then it is good work. How will that work be used, and to what ends? It is not for me to know.
If I try to do anything for the sake of achievement – to write a book so that I can change minds, or fence in a tournament so that I can win a medal – I gain nothing. I might get what I think I want, but it will be hollow, for there is always a better book that could have been written, a more important tournament that could have been won, another day in which a project fails or a victory is lost. If we pursue happiness and success directly, as Viktor Frankl said, we will most assuredly not find it. Only if we pursue something greater for its own sake, its own merits, will happiness come – when we are not looking for it.
If I do the work for the sake of the work, I can take pleasure and satisfaction in what I do: feeling enjoyment in the activity for its own sake, and gratitude to the One who gave me the gifts that I use and enjoy. And I know this from experience – the joy of the words well chosen for the ideas that took long hours to work out; the joy of the tournament fenced with everything I’ve got, win or lose. My real work is to become ever more the person I was made to be, to live in such a way that the light of Christ shines in and through me to lighten others’ lives. Not to do, but to be.
I can write when it is time to write, and fence when it is time to fence, and teach when it is time to teach – giving each my all, at that moment – and I can rest when it is time to rest. For He who gave me work to do, also bids me rest.
Related posts:
Dr Holly Ordway came to Christ through reason, in the pursuit of truth. "In your hearts honor Christ as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 15).
She writes about her journey from atheism to orthodox Christian faith in her book "Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith" (Moody Publishers).
