Why New Year's resolutions never seem to last

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday January 4th, 2010

New Year's resolutions never last long do they?

How many have you broken already?

I have a theory. I wonder if the problem is that most of our resolutions are self centred, and so personal -- and more importantly, so independent -- that we are doomed to failure.

"I am going to stop smoking" or perhaps "I am going to lose weight" or even "I am going to run a marathon" are the types of things most of us say.

We might even get around to personality driven resolutions like "I will be happier" or "I will be a better father," but they are similar to the type I am describing.

And here is where they go wrong; the first word . . . "I."

Do you know that it has really only been over the last 30 years that we as a culture have moved away from the concept of "we" and focused on "I"? That change came about because of the 1960s. That is the simple truth of it.

A lot of people blame the past for a lot of things. I want to make it clear that there are hundreds of things that happened in the 1960s and 1970s that I am fully in favour of and think made society a much better place: the emancipation of women for example, or the civil rights movement and a greater move towards equality. I would even say the Vietnam War protests changed things for the better when they showed us that we can question motivations for government action.

Here is where it fell apart: the 1960s brought to consciousness the philosophical ideal of relativism. Relativism began the slippery slope to individualism. Individualism, well, it destroyed the fabric of society.

In a basic way, relativism is exactly what it sounds like, everything is relative. Which might not sound like much, but do not be fooled; if everything is relative, well, then nothing has any meaning.

There are certain truisms which we say all the time now, such as "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" or "that may be true for you but it is not true for me" that are the hallmarks of relativistic philosophy. It has so invaded our culture that we forget there was another way of seeing things.

For thousands of years philosophers and artists argued that there was such a thing as "beauty" which was universally true -- you could look at something and it would be beautiful. Whether or not you liked it was another thing altogether, but you had to admit it was beautiful. There was no such thing as beauty in the eye of the beholder, in fact, very few people were felt competent enough to judge real beauty; and the majority of people just accepted that a master work was just that, masterfully beautiful.

Same thing with the concept of true; when the folks sat down to draft the American Declaration of Independence that said: "We hold these truths to be self evident . . ." There was no question that everyone would agree it was true that everyone was created equal, that everyone had the same rights to life, and freedom. There were just certain things, certain axioms that were inviolate; no matter who you were or what you thought, they were true.

Relativism changed the focus from universal truth to independent truth. This is true for me; and that is all that matters. So you might think smoking marijuana is bad, but I think it is good, and who are you to tell me what to think? You might think that God exists, or that modern art is interesting, or that chamber music is boring; but in the end your opinion really does not matter to me and I will live my life the way I want to. Period.

Here is a concrete way that this has changed society for the worse: professionals. No matter what you do, most of the people you encounter will think you are doing it wrong if you are not doing it the way they want. Doctors, lawyers, ministers, politicians, dentists, writers, lawn care experts, life guards, waitresses . . . no matter who you are you are consciously questioned and people second guess you.

This is relativism and individualism at its worst. When someone off the street is able to say with confidence, "I don't believe you that it is just the flu, I think it is chicken pox and you are not going to convince me otherwise!" to a doctor and believe that their opinion is just as valid, there is something wrong.

We simply no longer believe that some things are just universally true, which makes it difficult to navigate how to be around other people.

Take that one step further and the focus becomes getting my needs met; sometimes at the cost of the needs of others. What is important to me is of course the most important thing in the universe. So I should get the promotion and the rest of the company be damned. If there is one Pinkie Pie My Little Pony left in the store before Christmas, my kid should get it, even though she has 100 other presents and the father who just missed picking it up is buying the one thing he can afford for his daughter and it is all she asked for and he is crying, and well, tough . . . me first.

And so, relativism has destroyed our society by making us believe that we are more important than we are.

Which is a long way around to telling you why your New Year's resolutions are doomed to failure; you will fail because for some strange reason we all think it is completely up to us to make it work.

"I" cannot do anything alone. "We" can do anything together.

My New Year's resolution is to stop believing I have the power to change myself or anyone else without asking for a lot of help.

Anything is possible!