What you missed about new year resolutions

• What if I said there is more to your goals than meets the eye?

Official column logo

Screenshot of original publication

The Pilgrim, January 13, 2023*

If you asked somebody what their 2023 resolutions are, they might tell you they want to change their sleeping or spending habits, improve their work ethic, cut off so-called toxic people and—perhaps more overarchingly—simply stop being lazy!

Religionists won’t stop there. They’ll spice it up with one or two themes such as My Year of Abundance or My Year of Settlement.

We do all these things to increase the odds of success in the new year, or to address a lack of personal progress and reduce the risk of poverty.

These resolutions imply that it takes a specific set of choices to end one’s poverty or financial struggle.

We like to think that if only we can burn the midnight oil, or put in more hours at work, we may soon be able to lead the life of Riley.

Such is the popular imagination, even as 2023 moves along, that everybody thinks in terms of what can I do differently?

Unscrupulous preachers and motivational speakers know this, and they capitalize on it to sell you a false sense of hope. Try listening to their exhortations around this time. They’ll tell you that what the new year brings to you will depend greatly on what you bring to the new year.

Some presumptuous motivational speaker in Lusaka has even taken this further with the slogan Africa Must Think, as if to imply that we’ve to blame mere cognitive processes for the poverty faced by many Africans, instead of the lopsided global economy that favors the Global North and disadvantages the Global South. Sigh.

But if new year resolutions work, why is it that little to nothing in terms of personal fortune changes through the course of a new year? All people do is come up with iterations of the same resolutions year after year.

Indeed, if new year resolutions work, why do people still moan and groan about not being able to make ends meet, even after they supposedly improved their work ethic or started waking up at 4 AM as a demonstration of newfound character and discipline?

I’ve the answer and it’s not mine alone. Economists have grappled with this irony for many years. The question is: do unaccomplished goals in your life reflect poor morals or habits? Or is your being poor, as the economists put it, a moral failing? More specifically, are you poor because you don’t wake up early?

I’ve concluded that new year resolutions don’t add up because they’re often based on a flawed concept, on the idea that personal success is commensurate to an individual’s outstanding character or hard work, and that people stay poor because they have no morals, or the resolve to work hard.

So we develop goals while equating poverty to laziness and wealth to hard work. If you’re being honest, you know that this isn’t true at all because there are countless hard-working people out there who can’t keep soul and body together.

The truth is that no matter how high-sounding your new year resolutions are, the chances of you achieving them or not depend on how society is organized. Indeed, how can a hard-working Black man become wealthy in an oppressive society that discriminates against people of his color? If you think this is a useless argument, then why do we have the independence movement in Africa, the civil rights movement, or immigration itself?

These limitations can best be explained by an idea called the sociological imagination, and modernization and dependency theories, which I came across while studying sociology at the University of Zambia. Propounded by American sociologist Charles Wright Mills, the sociological imagination challenges us to identify the relationship between individual experiences and forces in the larger society that might affect our actions.

Indeed, going into 2023, you could be the person who’s earliest to open their barbershop at the local market, but that will not amount to anything, for example, if the energy crisis (load shedding) continues to bedevil the country. Work done is equal to zero.

It’s also true that despite having multiple degrees, you would still end up jobless if the government, for example, imposed an employment freeze in your industry of interest.

The illustrations above prove that any set of new year resolutions, unique as they may be to an individual, can be disrupted by forces of nature or by a single decision in the larger society like a policy reform by government.

So success or failure isn’t always a product of an individual’s own doing. It’s dictated by a variety of factors. These might include government decisions, the type of family and community one is born into, or the opportunities around them as they grow.

As you develop goals for any new season, begin to see patterns in your society. Start seeing yourself as part of a larger society where, while it’s important to become your very best self, you don’t really need to be harsh on yourself if things don’t work out.

Don’t believe the self-made millionaire baloney. Nobody really makes it by themselves. No amount of individual righteousness can singlehandedly propel you to the upper echelons of human society. You can have the greatest work ethic in the world, but without help and support from family and friends, it’s only a matter of time before you’re disabused of your illusions.

This explains why the concepts of a protestant ethic and capitalism are so divisive in individual democracies and the larger free world. They don’t acknowledge the economic injustice of the world. They would rather create and support it.

In America, where I’m studying, it’s not true that self-reliance and hard work underlie the American Dream. Instead, people thrive because American society makes it possible for them to do so. It’s also the reason why an individual like Elon Musk can easily become the richest person in the world. America abounds with seed funding and tax cuts, and thus makes industrialization possible.

New year resolutions such as working hard may be connected to financial success, yes, but correlation isn’t causation. Success sometimes may be as simple as marrying into a wealthy family, relocating to a better country, or studying at a prestigious university. You don’t need to really work hard to do any of these things. But perhaps all you may need is a little help from somebody.

It's wise to see life in terms of patterns and realize that our lives are not independent of each other. In a globalized world, it’s not only countries that are interconnected, but also the very souls of individuals and the choices they make. Remember, a virus originating in China almost demolished the whole world.

So if any new year resolution falls flat in 2023, consider that the problem could be a structural or systemic one, rather than one caused by you as an individual. But remember also to get as much help as you can, because no one can really do it by themselves.

*This column is published every Friday in Zambia's leading newspaper, the Zambia Daily Mail