It happens every year. At the stroke of midnight on December 31 when the calendar turns the page from one year to the next, something amazing happens. In the lives of people everywhere, hope is reborn. Even though nothing but the calendar actually changes in that microsecond between 11:59:59 and 12:00:00 midnight, the thought of opportunity for a new beginning gives hope that, just possibly, life will get better. I suspect that mindset is especially the case this year as people anticipate that moment when the calendar no longer reads 2020, but 2021. For some, maybe many, the thought of seeing 2020 in their rearview mirror brings a sense of great consolation.
The hope for a better life come January 1 is often verbalized in what we call New Year’s resolutions – those statements of commitment to do something better with the arrival of a new year. The challenge which comes with New Year’s resolutions is that in actuality, they are verbalized commitments to affect some kind of change in our lives – changing a habit, an attitude, a comfortable way of doing life, an addiction, a favorite sin. And we all know how resistant our human natures are to change.
That tendency to resist the discomfort that comes with change was born out in the life of Albert Einstein in a comment he made in a letter he wrote to his lifelong friend Michele Besso. Besso was a Swiss-Italian engineer of Jewish descent who professed to be a Christian. She had taken it upon herself at some point to learn Hebrew. Einstein was also Jewish, but had never learned Hebrew. Obviously at some point Einstein gave thought to the effort it would take to change that lack of knowledge in his life, because in one of his letters to her he said that he felt some shame in not knowing Hebrew. But then he added, “But I prefer to feel ashamed than to learn it.”1
What has to happen in a person’s life for him or her to reach the point where he or she is no longer willing to accept the status quo and to do what is necessary to make a desired change? What does it take to make a New Year’s resolution more than hot air?
- First, get sold on the negative consequences for your life should you not make the change.
This comes by carefully and wisely anticipating where you will end up if you continue down the path you are currently traveling. The late American comedian Irwin Corey spoke great wisdom when he once said, “If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re going.”
- Second, get sold on the benefits that will come should you make the change.
That wisdom is found in a conversation a friend of mine had with a man named Mooney Player, one-time legendary high school football coach in South Carolina, who upon leaving coaching, became a business leadership guru. While discussing the subject of people’s resistance to change, my friend asked him, “When will a person be willing to convert (change their behavior)?” Mooney Player wisely responded, “When the perceived payoff is greater than the current payoff they are getting.”
Ultimately the greatest help in affecting desired changes to make you a better person comes from having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That truth is spoken in the Bible through these words, “Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come (1 Corinthians 5:17 NASB).” Having Christ in your life can enable you to join with the Apostle Paul in saying, “I can do all things through Him [Christ] who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13 NASB).”
Happy 2021
1APNews.com, 3/6/19
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