2 January

Dear friends,

Isn’t the best New Year’s resolution to have none at all?

This is the question theologian Dirkie Smit asks in a newspaper column, loosely inspired by Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety. Why do we even care about making New Year’s resolutions, he asks. Is it because we hope for a happier year? Or because we are striving towards a better life, greater hope, or some deeper sense of fulfilment? Perhaps it is because we dream of something different this year and want to invest the time and effort needed to reach that dream. Is this not what lies behind all our longings?

But here is the thing, he says: it is precisely these wishes, dreams, and ambitions that contribute to our discontent in the year ahead. It is these often secret desires, sometimes unsaid and even unconscious, that frustrate us. It is the prospects we cherish, even when we are barely aware of them, the yardsticks by which we measure our lives, even when we do not recognise them as such, and the ideals we pursue, even when we do not fully understand them, that leave us so troubled, he argues, so full of anxiety and inner turmoil. This is especially true when these longings are shaped by our culture, to the point where our dreams become entangled with recognition, prestige, and status.

When asked about his own New Year’s resolutions, another well-known thinker, Miroslav Volf, explains that this time of year matters precisely because it confronts us with a deeper question: “What now? Where should I point the arrow of my longing?”

Like Smit, Volf sees many New Year’s resolutions as attempts to give language to our hidden longings for comparison. At this time of year, he explains, we may feel particularly malcontent, because our lives are consumed by an unrelenting striving. We either try to be better than others, or, if we are more careful, to be excellent in some area. Either way, as he puts it, we never truly come to rest. We never feel that we are good enough or that we have enough.

This constant striving is precisely where the problem lies. As Smit writes: “The seeds of frustration are already hidden in the intentions themselves. The germ of misfortune is already growing in our wishes. There will never be any end, no lasting fulfilment, permanent acceptance, or complete happiness if we continue down this path.”

Perhaps, then, the best New Year’s resolution for 2026 is to have none at all.

Or, like Volf, we might attempt a different kind of resolution, one that resists this endless striving towards nothingness. He offers two of his own. First, he says, “I will strive towards that which I consider to be truly good; I will avoid striving to be better or superior to anyone else.” And second, “I will take regular time, a day each week, an hour each day, to delight in what I already have. I will stop longing for something I do not have and focus on longing for what I actually have.” This paradoxical longing for what we already have, combined with a striving for what is truly good, he suggests, is what allows our souls to come to life.

So, what are your resolutions this year? What are we longing for as a church community? Perhaps we, too, can practise being content with what we already have, while longing for that which we know to be truly good.

Marius Louw