Can’t never could in a vacuum

OK, it’s March. How’s that New Year’s resolution holding up? Did you quit for good by now, or did what I wrote in February help?

Following a stop behavior with a start behavior is like releasing the pressure valve of a vacuum. It can let positive willpower rush in and bolster your resolve. Let me put it this way: When you said you were going to stop doing x-y-z, did you find an a-b-c to put in its place?

My dad had some really pithy sayings, which is probably why I am so long-winded and complex. I hate pithy sayings, but sometimes, I’ll admit, they work. 

One of them I found myself saying to my middle son on a particularly powerfully cold morning in February (we have had a few of those this winter — yowza!). We had walked across the field to his school because traffic was so horrible, and we got out of the house so late that we had to take the short cut to school. That meant we parked in the back of a subdivision and walked some. We event left our jackets at home because we did not think it was actually that cold. 

In that moment, I told him, “The quickest way between two points is a straight line.” So instead of walking around the track, we cut across the field in the middle and saved five minutes, which, in bitter cold with no jacket nor gloves, spares a finger.

Another of my dad’s pithy sayings is “Can’t never could.” I really hated that one, which is odd because one of my favorite books as a child was The Little Engine That Could.  I especially liked the page with all the candy and fruit that had to get over the hill to the kids in the town on the other side. I could be one of those kids. 

So in those moments, I was the Little Engine who Couldn’t, facing “Can’t never could”, and couldn’t/can’t was winning! Maybe Little Engine could, but Little Engine wasn’t climbing Mt. Everest. It was just a hill, for crying out loud! At least whatever I was facing felt like Mt. Everest. 

 “Can’t never could,” my … scrawny little… bottom. 

My anxiety made it look and feel like an unclimbable, oxygen-deprived peak. And as I have written before, anxiety spikes when we perceive that what is being asked of us has to be accomplished alone.

What positive willpower needs in order to sustain its movement toward something healthy and wholesome is community. We need someone not necessarily who will do it for us, or even with us, but is at least there, encouraging, extolling, exonerating, exhorting. My middle son never would have walked across the field in the cold by himself. He needed me with him. The Little Engine that Could couldn’t have done it by herself. She needed the encouragement, challenges and celebrations of her passengers. 

You might have quit, you might be slowing, or you might be continuing your resolutions with great vigor. But at this point, to sustain (or to revive or even refresh), get some community around you, someone or ones to encourage you, extol you, enliven you with their words and presence, whether doing it alongside of you or just in the vicinity while you do your resolution. 

Can’t never could, in a vacuum.

Paul Johnson is a professionally licensed marriage and family therapist, a professionally licensed counselor and a nationally certified counselor. You may reach him at 807-6645 or paul@lifepractical.org. His office is in Greystone Centre on U.S. 280.