Joseph Lewis D’Silva
There is time for everything. There is time to play and a time to pray; a time to speak and a time to listen; a time to welcome and a time to bid adieu. New Year is such a time — a time to make resolutions.
I am aware that heroes of heaven, I mean the saints, succeeded to live up to their resolutions. All other men, living on earth, make resolutions because their spirit is willing; but they fail to keep them because their flesh is weak; so, they fall back into their old habits. Of course, they rise again, for they are born in resolutions (hereditary quality); live in resolutions and wish to die in resolutions; because they know that God looks not at their failures but at the number of attempts they make every time they fall, even if it be ‘70 times seven’.
There are a good number of zeros who do not make any resolutions at all as they do not have a desire to get out from their wrong habits and sadly, do not mind if they change from bad to worst. According to me, men without resolutions are like ships without a rudder; a wood drifting in the river of life and finally ending in the eternal river of hell.
People of all rank and fashion make a resolution. Lovers, faced with family’s objection, resolve to come to the natural conclusion before they walk up to the altar for the official matrimonial benediction.
Fun-loving individuals make resolutions not to flirt with women.
Purse proud persons make up their mind not to ignore poor people.
Athletics resolve to visit the gym regularly.
Caste proud men come to a decision not to make caste distinctions in life and so we have marriages of mixed castes.
Smokers resolve to abandon Lady Nicotine.
Gamblers decide to give up “Modko or mini-gambling” — a small land Casino like the massive offshore Casino.
Drinkers resolve not to leave tavern aunties’ bottle and drink only what fishes drink, namely, water by keeping water at arm’s length and “feni” at leg’s length not only because one is weak but also because the fiery “feni” in the bottle is as tempting as the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.
But, one thing, I have found; and what I have come across is shocking: not about resolution of an individual but a person’s evolution of the letters AD, or ‘the year of our Lord. According to him, AD is not Anno Domini, but Achhe Din due to the start of the golden age of demonetisation. His resolution is to observe this train of thought as long as he lives.
If we analyse the New Year resolutions, we find, it usually focuses on making new habits to improve our physical body and mind. Our soul is eternal. So, resolutions we make should be lasting beyond our physical life with daily meditation and connecting it with the eternal source of all happiness, love that does not perish but gain the spiritual riches which God wants to bestow on us — union with God.
