Monday, December 31, 2012

resolutions

So, I'm an extraordinary breaker of resolutions, as anyone who is familiar with the "addictive mindset" or has "had a conversation with me" might have guessed. I would like to be the kind of person who provides attentive maternal care to a brood of children, possibly adopted and with a variety of special needs, in between shifts as a surgical resident in the hospital where I am preparing for my career with Doctors Without Borders. I believe I should be that person, and yet my biggest accomplishment to date has been developing the ability to care for my single, perfect child, not flunk out of nursing school, and get through the day without bingeing and vomiting in frustration over the chasm between the person I am and the person I wish I were. While it may have made Christianity the pariah in the middle-school lunchroom of contemporary culture, to me, the doctrine of my own essential and absolute inadequacy is  self-evident to the point that I view hypotheses which don't take it for granted the way a fervent atheist might view the apologetics of C.S. Lewis.

Given that, resolutions are a weakness of mine. I indulge in the idea that I can make myself closer to the person I wish I were by reading to my son more regularly, say, or by setting goals and sticking to them.

In my case, though, the goals I set metastasize. I start out with small, measurable goals and end up with goals like: effect meaningful change with respect to global poverty, or, help end obstetric fistula. As a result, my current "working list" of resolutions is actually more of an outline, endowed with a number of tumor-like qualities including a lack of differentiation (am I a wife and mother first, or a Christian, or a saver of impoverished Cambodian children? Are teaching third graders science and promoting breastfeeding in Brooklyn worthwhile goals, or should I jettison them because people are dying of malaria as I type? Is blogging a valuable creative outlet, or a distraction from the many pressing, concrete needs of those around me?)

Having said that, my Big Goal for 2013 has been streamlined into two parts, as I've decided that anything more complex starts to take on the shape of that scary multi-headed Harry Potter dog whose name I would recall if I had allowed myself to truly enjoy the Harry Potter books, rather than racing through them amid a pile of more "legitimate" reading material:

1. Find, do, and document concrete activities to address global poverty, while
2. Not allowing these activities to overshadow my day-to-day life.

To wit (and this is part of the body of resolutions that I have subjugated to the Big Goal and demoted to "outline" status): I'm going to stop myself from looking up aid agencies while my son is playing in front of me and thinking about what I read on GiveWell when my husband is telling me about his workday. I'm going to remember that, while it may be my privilege to play a role in the renewal of all things, that role is not "director".  And that I'm not a visionary, but I can be useful -- to the degree that I resist the often-overwhelming temptation to make my life about me and my vision.

Small things, great love. If there's nothing new under the sun, at least that gives those of us who catch on more slowly the opportunity to catch up.

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