Resolute (adj):  firmly resolved or determined; set in purpose or opinion.

Tomorrow begins a New Year, and as such, it is the time of New Years Resolutions.  It’s a common joke that we Americans are very fond of making a list of items we want to achieve in the new year – from losing weight and getting in shape to taking a self-improvement course and looking for a new job - and then abandoning half these things come February.

Thinking about it, New Years Resolutions aren’t very resolute, because people are not firmly resolved or determine to do them.  They just sound good in theory, so we make ourselves feel better about our lives by saying that we’ll take action when we have no real intention of doing so.

In the last year, I have listened to too many of my friends routinely complain about the circumstances of their lives, circumstances which they had resolved to change and then didn’t.  It’s frustrating to witness, because these things are completely in their control.  They’re the only ones who can transform their lives for the better, and yet they are held back by fear or inertia or laziness.  

It probably won’t surprise you that I’m a huge fan of Ayn Rand, whose objectivism philosophy dictates that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest, with productive achievement as one’s noblest activity.  Ayn would say that these friends of mine, especially those with dead-end jobs they refuse to leave, aren’t fulfilling their potential as human beings, and that they have a duty to make a couple of serious New Years Resolutions and then stick to them.

And if they don’t, they should at least quit whining about it, because they have no one to blame but themselves.