January 2, 2025
Over the years, it’s been difficult to escape the question, “What are your New Year's resolutions?” So far today, no one has posed the question. But if someone does, I will be tempted to reply, “My only resolution is to not make a resolution, which is a resolution I can keep” and leave the questioner thinking about the logical paradoxes in that statement. It's not that I undervalue goal setting, determination, and steely resolve. These are good things. My annoyance is with the date. You see, I am always in a state of resolving to do this or that, or to be more of a certain kind of person. What’s January 1st to a person in perpetual resolve? The date fails to stand out in any significant way to me in this regard. If anything, New Year’s Day is a day to relax and enjoy the peaceful company of others.
As it happens, making a resolution on this day or at this time of year doesn’t increase its chance of fruition. People that track these things say that 90% of resolutions are left in the dust after just one month. The reasons for failure? The experts point to resolutions that are too unrealistic, or not remembered often enough (writing down goals increases the already bleak odds of success by a third). Resolutions that have a clear goal but neglect naming the intermediary steps also are pretty much doomed according to the research. In the end, being creatures of habits, it’s hard to shed old ones and start new ones.
Having said all of this, I was struck by one person’s resolution. She resolved to eliminate her habit of scouring the Internet via her handheld phone looking over all the bad news that crops up in our world. There's actually a name for this, which is what caught my attention: it’s called doomscrolling. Look it up on Wikipedia. It’s the practice of reading negative news, with the resultant likelihood of increasing one’s anxiety, anger, and depression. And doomscrolling is an epidemic.
Finding a new word that identifies something is often helpful, especially when it names a problem. Doomscrolling! The word itself may be powerful enough to banish the habit. In contrast to doomscrolling, scrolling through the Scriptures will remind Christians, that there is some long-standing power in this wisdom from God through the apostle Paul. He wrote:
Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
This New Testament passage, Philippians 4: 8-9 is worth holding before our eyes whatever day of the year it is, and every day.