THE QUALITY OF OUR RESOLVE
INTENTION
When I heard Civil Rights legal icon Fred Gray forcefully declare these words at March On! a few years back, it hit me as powerful a resolution as I had ever witnessed.
“ I decided I would finish college, then law school, pass the bar and destroy everything segregated I could find.”
Since the 1950s, Gray has defended Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin (both at her arrest, and decades later when her juvenile record was expunged); the Freedom Riders, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the families of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. He served in the Alabama State Legislature. He received a Presidential Medal of Freedom. At 95 years old and still practicing, that declaration has held true throughout his lifetime.
It’s the first month of 2026, and that means making resolutions to do things to improve the quality of our lives. Things like losing weight, starting an exercise routine, quitting a bad habit, completing a project, saving money… You name it. Not as profound as Attorney Gray’s, perhaps, but personally meaningful nonetheless.
We want the change because we feel we will be better and happier for it. Unfortunately, by this time next month, those changes will be mostly abandoned. This year, to prevent that, I am examining the resolution-making by studying the fundamental and progressive characteristics that comprise them.
VISIONING
“We are our ancestors' wildest dreams.”
This notion profoundly uplifted me when I first saw it. It gave me the courage and strength to do more than I thought I could because I realized I have ancestral backup. Just as our history’s legends understood, we are embodying what was already dreamed long before.
And not just by our ancestors. Who we are now is the manifestation of past visions we have had for ourselves. We are gestating who we are becoming.
Also, what we visualize for ourselves is simultaneously and energetically called into being by others who want or need that very thing. So, the book we want to write? Readers are eagerly seeking it. The music we want to compose? Listeners are longing to hear it. A cause you want to support? You’re already needed.
Whatever we feel called to give, it is because there are those who are ready to receive. We derive help from the collective consciousness in drawing our dreams to life.
So what commonly stops us from fulfilling our resolutions? Fears of some kind–of being seen, of criticism or rejection, of failing or not being as good as someone else, of succeeding and not being able to sustain or repeat that success.
Each of these invokes a deep emotional discord that we prefer to avoid. It can seem almost better, safer, and more comfortable to not try and just live with the disappointment.
How about viewing discomfort not as a wall, but a womb; as a portal, instead of a pit? Vision issues an invitation to sit in the discomfort long enough for the new to emerge, like a seed germination in the darkness of the soil, or a caterpillar dissolving itself into a butterfly.
“Those who monopolize resources, also monopolize imagination.”
Another perspective in imaging is to expand our concept of what is possible. We are captured by societal and technological forces shaping our collective consciousness.
For example, we can easily imagine AI surpassing human cognition. Chips implanted in our bodies to enhance or replace human abilities while monitoring our every movement. Extraterrestrial species bent on our enslavement and destruction. Race and class warfare. Serial killers around every corner.
This is the algorithm-driven, all-pervasive media we consume, produced by a handful of powerful and controlling profiteers.
Conversely, it seems unrealistic and even downright inconceivable to envision a world in which all are fed and have access to clean water. Where everyone is housed and engaged in work that supports and fulfills all our needs. Where we live justly in Dr. King’s “Beloved Community.”
This dearth of imagination limits and defines our sense of what is possible to achieve. Time to empower ourselves by changing our perspectives.
DEVOTION
When we have a person, thing, or principle that we love deeply, we view our connection to them as a covenant, a sacred vow, and lavish it with our devotion, respect, and commitment. I used to think of devotion only in the context of my spiritual life. This year, I treat my resolutions with heart-centered devotion and make them holy with my word.
ALIGNMENT
Along with a sense of limitless possibility held inviolate and adhered to with devotion, we must take daily action to see them come to fruition. Habits are formed in repetition and become the design system of discipline.
I will support my resolutions with small, regularly repeated steps. And when I fall down, I will give myself the compassion I deserve to begin again.
