Lingamfelter: Ye Olde Resolutions

The other day, my dear wife asked me innocently “Do you have any resolutions for this new year?” I groused at the idea saying, “My only resolution this year is to get to next year.” It was a rude brush off. But the last two years have felt rude. In 2020, we saw COVID-19 arrive. That was bad enough, but our leaders made it far worse by misdiagnosing the proper responses
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Among the more notable idiocies were closing our economy, not providing proactive testing, failing to prioritize quarantine efforts on the most vulnerable as opposed to otherwise healthy people, closing restaurants despite the tiny risk to contracting Covid there, shuttering our schools and damaging the education of countless children, and standing by idly while our government deprived us of our freedom, while asserting that wanted to save our lives. Somehow they managed to drive a wedge between life and liberty, while we passively watched.

And 2021 was no better, particularly since we handed control of our government to shallow people who want to turn it into a socialist utopia it was never intended to be nor one most of us want. Oh, and the vaccine rollout? That was the worst orchestrated mess I’ve ever witnessed, next to the Afghanistan debacle, the deliberate open-border crisis, surrendering our energy independence by killing jobs in that industry, paying people to stay at home and not work, and the highest inflation in 30 years. But I digress. In this environment, can one be blamed for simply resolving to endure the year? In retrospect, brushing off my wife’s question was wrong. We all need to resolve that 2022 will be a better year. Hope springs eternal. So here are my resolutions:

1. Improve my Health: I am too fat, my blood pressure is too high, and I have the flexibility of a granite statue without the strength. Solution? Lose weight and live a better life.

2. Drink More Water: See #1 above.

3. Listen and Look More, Think Longer, Speak Less: The most important faculties we have are eyes and ears. Next to that, our brains. Worst of all is our tongue, particularly if we don’t listen, observe, and think before we speak. And often the first action is to say something ill-advised. As Abraham Lincoln is said to have said, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

4. Continue Writing: It’s what I do now. Having successfully published Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War, I am about to submit my revised final draft of a new one on my time as a U.S. soldier serving with the UN as an unarmed Middle East peacekeeper (1981 – 1982) in Syria, Israel, and southern Lebanon. It was, as I write in my book, “the Wild West without a good saloon.” It was also the last time I agreed to serve in a combat zone without a rifle. I already have a third book in mind…and of course my weekly updates will continue, even if you hit the delete key.

5. Spend Less, Save More: When I look around, I have much stuff. It wasn’t free. It cost money. And I would like to use that money in wiser ways than acquiring more “stuff.”

6. Don’t Buy China Stuff: As far as I am concerned, the Number One totalitarian nation in the world can eat their trinkets. If “Made in China” is on the label, then it goes back to the shelf. Period.

7. Spend Less Time on Social Media: At best it is high-tech graffiti and at worst intellectual pornography. Besides, the people who benefit most are the self-righteous deciders of what we should say, do, and think. So, I say to them, I’ll do less postings and make them think about that for a while.

8. Turn off the TV: See # 7 above.

9. Walk with my Wife: She likes to walk. I prefer other ways to exercise—and do—but sometimes in life you do what others want. It’s called not being selfish.

10. Live out Mark 16:15:  “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” It’s all that truly matters…

Happy New Year!

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