Three Day Resolutions

A religious sister in the Catholic Peace Weekly reminds us about our New Year's Resolutions that have lasted no more than three days. As the Korean proverb says, a resolution lasts only three days.

Keeping your resolution is a great thing that creates a new habit through constant repetition. She mentions a person living without plans and finally made a resolution, and there were three. First, lose weight, read one book a month, and do some studying for a certificate.

A resolution is about making up your mind, so it is praiseworthy. However, making a resolution and keeping it are very different. To lose weight, you have to exercise consistently. He, who didn’t usually read books, had to make time to read one book a month until he developed the habit, and to get a certificate, he had to study while working. Keeping a resolution is a great thing that creates a new habit through consistent repetition.

Three days of determination (作心三日). It means that even though you have decided, keeping the resolution for over three days is difficult. It shows how weak our willpower is. But is it really because we lack will and effort? 

Our nuns also make spiritual and material resolutions every year and make annual plans. You must break away from your old habits and create new ones to carry out a new plan. However, our brains like familiar things more than good and meaningful things. That’s why setting new and creative goals is exciting and joyful, but it’s never easy to repeat them until you get used to them. Moreover, keeping your resolutions has become unfamiliar and boring in a digital environment where immediate pleasure is just around the corner.

You wake up early and decide to ‘exercise’ for an hour. However, as soon as you wake up, you reach for your smart device, and ‘5 minutes’ becomes 10 minutes and then 30 minutes. Naturally, you postpone it until ‘tomorrow.’ You decide to read one book a month, but you waste your ‘free time’ on digital devices while commuting to and from work or during a short break. The reason why you keep making resolutions in the digital age is not just due to your own laziness or lack of will. Sister thinks it’s a matter of how you use your free time and deal with familiar emotional habits. We need to practice staying with less stimulating, boring, dull emotions. 

Many people are addicted to their smartphones, so much so that there is a saying that refraining from smartphones is more difficult than quitting smoking. It’s natural to take out your smartphone whenever you have ‘free time.’ Nine out of ten people say it’s because of ‘boredom’. The fear of boredom prevents us from putting down our smartphones. Emotions are also habits. Emotions that have been repeated for a long time and become familiar are comfortable, like old friends. Emotions that have become accustomed to immediate rewards cannot tolerate boredom. Boredom is an emotion that responds even without a reward.

In fact, neither exercising nor reading books or studying can provide immediate rewards. Exercising for a month or two will not help you lose the weight you want or become healthy, and reading will not immediately accumulate the knowledge you want. In some ways, exercising or reading is truly boring. However, if you cannot endure this boredom, you will not be able to secure quality leisure time to keep your resolutions.

Research shows that enduring boredom strengthens self-control and fosters creativity and perseverance. British psychologist Professor Sandi Mann had a group do monotonous and boring activities and then evaluated their creative problem-solving skills. As a result, the deeper the boredom, the more creative thinking was activated, producing more original and creative results.

How long will we only make three-day resolutions? Digital devices we indulge in when bored and tired create emotional habits that make boredom unbearable. They occupy our spare time as we become accustomed to immediate rewards. Eventually, we rationalize it and postpone it until ‘tomorrow’, which may never come. We long for some new change, but we stop at' three-day resolutions due to our habit of searching for stimulation.’

There is still time. The moment when you feel bored is the precious ‘free time’ that helps us keep our resolutions. I hope you will keep your resolutions this year with ‘free time’ that turns 24 hours into 25 and three days into a year.