Spare yourself some change

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

It's strange what your brain decides to remember, what it puts in first place and shuffles to the head of the class. It's not rule-bound like a teacher. The brain doesn't select the smartest or the best looking or even the cleverest memory to take out of mothballs. It's almost as if it reaches into a grab bag of life and pulls out whatever it finds. A snippet of conversation here. A splice of an afternoon there.

I have lived through many New Year's Days. So why am I remembering a single one from decades ago? Why am I seeing my best friend Rosemary's perfect penmanship in her new diary and the look of resolve on her freshly scrubbed 13-year-old face - a resolve to improve herself?

I was surprised when she showed me her New Year's resolutions way back before I knew what resolutions were. The words themselves read as if they were straight out of a textbook.

Which, in fact, they were. Rose had copied the from Ben Franklin's "Autobiography." She was in the process of emulating Franklin and changing her life.

I didn't understand why Rose would want to change her life. She was smart. She had straight hair. And she had aunts and uncles who sent her presents.

Her life, as I saw it, couldn't get much better.

But there she was, jaw set and in pursuit of all these virtues. "Temperance," she read, quoting Franklin. "Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."

I knew Rose didn't eat anything dull. She sprinkled blue food coloring on Rice Krispies to give them pizzazz. And though I didn't know what trifling meant, I was sure it wasn't good. Franklin's list was long and detailed and Rose had copied every word. "Order. Resolution. Frugality. Industry. Sincerity. Justice. Moderation. Cleanliness. Tranquility. Chastity. Humility." Each came with an explanation.

Because these were Rose's resolutions and because I did everything she did, I immediately made them mine. I copied what she had copied. And I frowned, too, and tried to look determined.

Did we for even a day actually strive for moderation and sincerity and order? I don't know. But this was the first time we believed we had to be better than we were.

Now, years later, I'm thinking of that long-ago New Year's Day and how determined Rose was to become someone different and how I felt that if she changed, I had to change, too. And how counterproductive this rush to welcome a New Year with a new, improved version of who we are is. What this says is that who we are is never enough.

In the newspapers and the newscasts, there are always retrospectives. "The year in review." But what about our own year in review? Janus, the Roman god of doorways, after whom January is named, had two heads - one to look back and one to look forward. Why don't we do this? Why don't we make a list of all the good things we do and all the things we do well, instead of putting a big fat zero on that side of the ledger and a pumped-up wish list on the other side? Why are we all so hard on ourselves?

What happened the year Rose and I cribbed Ben Franklin? Did we turned away from trifling conversation? Did we become better 13-year-olds? Did we get any closer to moral perfection?

I don’t think so.

I remember the "Project of Arriving at Moral Perfection". But I don’t remember moral perfection at all.