The first rung on the ladder
On New Year’s Day, I had the bright idea of suggesting that my mother and I swap resolutions: I would come up with one change she should make in her life and she would do the same for me. So I reflected a little and came up with something that I felt was insightful and impactful, and yet also practical and doable. Then I waited eagerly for mine. I wanted something a little hard, something that would reveal to me a secret, fatal flaw I had never realised I had. Mam thought about it for a minute and then said, “Maybe you should cut back on the coffee a little.”
I should interject here that I do love my coffee, and that if it’s not black as tar and strong enough to kill a small mammal, I don’t really count it as coffee. So yes, my mother did have a point with that suggestion – it just wasn’t quite the revelation I’d hoped for. I thanked her all the same, and promised I’d try, and then went away and made my own list of resolutions. I was going to eat healthily, give up social media, read a set number of pages of decent literature every day, get to bed at a decent hour, and, the pièce de resistance, I was going to be a better, more dedicated, more consistent friend. In fact – and I’m not proud of this bit – I was even going to make a spreadsheet to record when I had last contacted various people and when I should get in touch with them again. Would you like to guess, dear reader, how many of those lofty goals I’ve stuck to as of today, January 8th? If you guessed higher than zero, you’re in for a disappointment. But do you know what? I’ve drunk a lot less coffee!
A fairly obvious moral
Obviously, the lesson here is that I shouldn’t set my standards so ridiculously high. It’s a hoary old cliché that gets trotted out every year: when it gets to new resolution time, there will inevitably be a flurry of think pieces telling you that when you set goals, they must be achievable. But the part I always struggle with is how exactly to determine what achievable is. Believe it or not, I actually thought my massive list of resolutions was pretty moderate until I wrote them all down about five minutes ago. Where do you set the bar? The answer (for me at any rate) seems to be, think of a small goal, and then think about ten times smaller again.
My problem is that that feels like cheating, or even (in my more neurotic moments) like a sin. When my faith constantly calls me to reject mediocrity and strive for excellence, lowering my standards can start to feel like giving in to the comfort-loving, materialist world that I’m called to be salt and light to. But at the same time, the Catholic faith is deeply practical and realistic. Having accumulated 2,000 odd years of spiritual experience, the Church knows very well what human beings are like: “The ordinary purgation and healing, whether of the body or of the soul, is only brought about little by little, by progressing from improvement to improvement, with effort and by slow degrees,” says St Francis de Sales, one of the most renowned spiritual directors in history. In other words, most of us don’t change overnight, and it probably wouldn’t be good for us if we did.
Excellence has to start somewhere
Here’s another classic trope that your standard New Year’s resolution editorial wouldn’t be complete without: every long journey consists of small steps. Again, it’s such a tired piece of self-help wisdom that I nearly shudder to write it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. No goal, no matter how noble, can be achieved all at once, even sainthood. If I am to reach for the greatness that God intends for me, I must start somewhere, and if I start with one small step, I am more likely to complete it and continue to the next one, rather than falling at the first hurdle and giving up in discouragement. All this to say that setting the bar very, very low is not incompatible with answering God’s call to live a great life, provided that I see that very low bar as the first rung in a very tall ladder – one leading all the way to heaven.
So yes, to be honest, my resolution for the year is pretty soft. Reducing my caffeine intake is a minuscule mortification when compared to all the heroic martyrs and ascetics the Church has raised up over the centuries. But it is grounded in the ordinary routine of my day-to-day life, and there’s a certain humility in that. After all, this daily life is what God has given me, which means this is where He expects me to become a saint. My morning cup of coffee is one of the foundational parts of my day. When I introduce a little sacrifice to God into that essential daily ritual, it’s transformed: suddenly it’s a prayer, and the foundation of my day now rests on God. Actually, this resolution is sounding less small by the second, so if anyone’s looking for me, I’ll be over here with a small cup of weak coffee. It’s a start!