Right about now, you may be feeling that urge, which hits sometime during the first couple of months of every year, the urge to forget the New Year’s resolutions to which you had so daringly committed only weeks ago. After all, you’ve already eaten that cake, skipped that workout session, smoked that cigarette… whatever. You tried, you failed.

But if the resolution was a good idea to start with—good enough for you to resolve to do it in the first place—then it’s probably still a good idea now. And giving up on resolutions, it seems to me, may be the sign of an addiction.

What do I mean by that? I’m glad you asked.

Your new year might have begun this past Saturday, on 1/1/11–as though there were something significant to that date. But my new year officially began today, on the first day the kids went back to school. (Yay!) There really is something significant to this day.

I began by driving my Firstborn to school this morning. Then I returned home and went back to sleep. Ah, it felt so good to sleep in!

And sleep. And sleep.

(Which is only one of the reasons this post is so late today.)

This year, I have no resolutions about eating better (I’m already doing that) or losing weight (I’ve already lost 2 inches around the middle, but the third is the hardest) or working a certain way (I think I’m on a good track regarding my work processes and methodologies). Rather, this new year simply feels like the end of one phase of my life and the beginning of another. Whether it will turn out that way, only the new Father Time will be able to say. Even so, as I look back on the past year, I see the promise of great change in my personal life.

My hope this new year is to form deeper relationships, to connect with people more closely, and to make greater, positive contributions to their lives. I’d say this post is one of the first big test cases.

I introduced these “hopes,” which could have been New Year’s resolutions—though I called them “wishes,” because I didn’t feel the word resolution captured their essence— I introduced them a couple Wednesdays ago, and then again in the context of a dream I awoke to on New Year’s day.

Maybe I should have called them “New Year’s prayers,” because that term could work just as well. Indeed, I have been praying for them to come true.

Today, in pursuit of an answer to that prayer, I was browsing through a long list of blogs that I had previously filed as potentially interesting. And I ran across the blog of “My Friend Amy”—that’s what she calls herself—and her weekend post, “Faith’n’Fiction Saturday," a weekly blog meme. The title itself intrigued me: “faith” and “fiction,” what a très kewl combo! I had to read more.

This Saturday, she asks, “What are your New Year’s resolutions?” In particular, she wants to know, “Do any of your resolutions pertain to your spiritual disciplines or to your reading life?”

My answer (not exactly the kind of answer she had in mind, I’m sure): Yes, and yes, but more directly the former than the latter.

Here’s how…

Once in a while you have one of those dreams that sticks with you after you wake up, moves you, speaks to you, but in ways you don’t understand upon waking. I had such a dream New Year’s morning. And the first thing I did was to write it down, or at least as much as I remembered:

I have prepared a presentation in a college course. But the professor decides not to use it, despite the work I’ve put into it. And no one seems to care.

Now I have prepared another presentation in the same course. I’ve put even more work into this one: researched my subject completely, prepared overhead slides, the works. Anxiety grips me, whether the professor and the rest of the class will receive my presentation well, or whether they will hate it, because I’ve never before given a presentation quite like this. But I remind myself that it’s better to try new things, to do what I haven’t succeeded at before, to expand my horizons, even if I ultimately fail at this attempt, because this is how I grow as a human being.

I leave class to double-check the overhead computer setup. I return just in time to give my presentation. But instead of calling on me, the professor announces another student, who is to give a presentation related to mine. That’s a mistake, however, because he’s already given his presentation, which the professor realizes as he walks up to the podium. He steps down off the dais and returns to his seat, and the professor calls another student to go.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering when my turn is going to come. It was supposed to be now. But maybe the professor just got his schedule confused. Maybe I’ll go next.

Now I am facing the student who had given the related presentation. I am sitting in his part of the lecture hall, in the seat in front of him, looking back across the table at him. He explains to me that I don’t have to give my presentation anymore, because he already gave his. Angry, I tell him that I do have to, because of all the work I’ve put into it. He tells me that it’s much better this way, because now I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll be any good.

My anger turns to rage. I yell at him that I need to give this presentation, because of all the work I put into it. He still doesn’t understand. I’m screaming now, that the professor was unfair, that the whole class must hear my presentation, because it has to make a difference.

I realize that this presentation is part of my search for meaning in my life, that it is something I haven’t done before and I’m nervous about; therefore, it will cause me to grow.

I repeat to my classmate, “It has to make a difference!”

By now, the whole class has noticed my behavior, and they are all cheering at me.

It’s the fifth day after Christmas, and you know what that means! Our thoughts turn to last-minute charitable donations (which we had every intention of making the previous year), New Year’s resolutions (which we have every intention of keeping the following year), and desperately searching for someone not too ugly to kiss tomorrow night when the clock strikes midnight.

Today, however, Jamie Ridler (indirectly) suggested an alternative to the New Year’s resolution, the New Year’s wish. She asks, “What do you wish for 2010?”

Now, at this juncture, I could make a crack about how we don’t keep our New Year’s resolutions anyway, so they might as well be “wishes.”

But that’s not where I’m going with this. See, a resolution is something I expect to do, presumably to better my situation. But a wish is something someone else needs to accomplish for me, or at least something that happens without my direct effort.

On the other hand, the new year is one of those months, one of those weeks, one of those days of the year. So New Year’s is as good a time as any to make a resolution… and keep it.

Here’s the resolution I’ve made for myself this new year. Actually, I started it December 31, because that’s when I decided to make the resolution. If I had decided to make this resolution in October, I would have started doing it in October. Because if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing now. There’s no point in waiting until January 1 to start improving your life. And that is why I’m here at my computer, working on the holiday, rather than playing Wii. Because that’s one of the steps to keeping a New Year’s resolution.