BEGINNINGS

Time is not a substrate we can manipulate to our advantage. Time is simply there dragging us along. It marks the events of our lives, provides rhyme and reason, adds sequencing to our moments creating the underlying logic of how we arrived at our current station. In this sense, time is our friend.

However, time will not help us upon request. “Wait up a second…”—time doesn’t have a second to spare. “If you could give me just a moment…”—time has no moments to give. Time just marches on, it just is, and we have to fit into it. In this sense, time is not our sympathetic friend.

There are no dress rehearsals in this world, no practices takes nor second chances. Every time you put that bar on your back, and every step you take, and every word you place on paper, is there forever. There is no editing that. There is no reversing that. There is no reversing anything. In this sense, time can be incredibly harsh and cruel—it is an impartial judge, unwilling to budge in the least. It does not allow for do-overs.

In the above sense, there are no practice hits; every hit goes down in the books. There are no mistakes, only failures—failure to do what you said you would do. Time moves in a singular direction. And you are the totality of the reps, steps, words and moments that led to this instant. Each one matters, each one counts. Every moment of your existence requires some degree of “motivation”, in the sense that you have to find reason and justification for putting forth the energy to do something. The alternative is to do nothing. “Life is a process of self-generated, self-sustaining action” (Ayn Rand). And to that end, we find the answer to the question posed by my friend from my column several months back (Determination)—“I totally understand the need/desire to constantly seek the best within yourself, but doesn’t everyone need a break sometime?” And the answer to that, quite literally, is: sure, when you’re dead—when time has left you in its wake, and continued to move forward without you.

…but…

But what about beginnings? We all love fresh beginnings. Everybody loves a good do-over. And while there are technically no such things as do-overs, in another sense, one’s life is measured as an infinite series of do-overs. Time is nothing but a sequence of moments repeating ad infinitum, a never-ending reel of opportunities to try your hand again at something, to practice and perfect and get better at and excel at some activity. Because we have the capacity to carve time into chunks and segments in our minds, we can view a series of missed opportunities as a singular stretch, or practice run, necessary in order to finally achieve our goal.

The easiest way to track the story of our lives is by carving it into larger headings, into chapters or epochs. And each chapter needs a heading, an opening line…

…So we begin our paragraphs, our sentences—our “new stretch” of success—with clearly-delineated sentences—

David—such as, “Today, January 1st, 2011, is the first day of me being successful. January 1st, 2011, is the first day of the rest of my life. I resolve to finally accomplish my goal”.

A resolution is the grand-daddy of do-overs, the final do-over committing to no more do-overs. It is commitment to the notion that there are no more dress rehearsals, that every moment matters, and that it’s time to ensure you quit repeating the same mistakes, you quit asking time to wait up, to spare a second, and instead, you finally jumped on board the train marching tirelessly towards its destination.

New Year’s Day—and resolutions, in general—are both potentially awesome and frightening. On the one hand, it’s the biggest “beginning” of the year. It is the official “Day of the Do-Over”, your public chance to call the last year, or several years, a dress rehearsal, a mere practice prior to this year, this moment in time, when life will truly begin, when you will stop trying to be successful and actually be successful, when you will stop wishing for greatness and actually hold onto greatness. New Year’s Day gives people that blank page needed, that fresh chapter heading—“And now, we enter this stretch”.

But at the same time, it’s just another day, like any other day, filled with moments, like all the other moments of the year. And each moment and each day is a fresh beginning, a new chapter, a blank page that you have to fill with writing. Even though we carve it up in our minds for the sake of cognitive clarity, time is not there to be carved or split or manhandled. It is a juggernaut striving endlessly. And in this sense, New Year’s Day is just another day; and a resolution is not as simple as declaring, “This is now how it will be”, and watching the events fall into place. Like taking up a new sport, one cannot “resolve” to be great at it and expect instant success; yet one cannot spend the entire game staring at the playbook. The timer continues to count down the seconds, and the end of the game is right around the corner. Keep your feet moving, drive towards the goal, and complete that game, that chapter; then look forward to the next game. Practice, drill, sweat until you have perfected the skill of being skilled per se, of being efficacious, of living within time, rather than watching it from outside, from the sidelines.

Every opportunity comes once in a lifetime. Resolve this year to live every moment with that mindset—to live in the moment, rather than outside of it.

Good luck with this newest chapter, “2011”. May it be the greatest chapter in your story to date.

-David A. Johnston

12-31-10