Punctuated resolution

There's a conflict in the field of evolutionary biology that I've always viewed as a false dichotomy, the battle between those who assert that evolution is a gradual process vs. those who hypothesize that it occurs in bursts punctuated by periods of relative calm. I'm in the group, if it exists, that asks, "Why not both?"

And as another year draws to a close and a new year opens, I'm also in the group that doesn't make resolutions, viewing them as a false marking point for trying self-fixit projects, a process of forcing something that happens in its own good time, sometimes gradually, sometimes in bursts, sometimes both. I can't resolve on something I'm not prepared to do just because of a Gregorian calendar dictate any more than a threatened species could suddenly evolve a life-saving adaptive strategy just because humans think it might be a good time for it.

So it is that I've seen self improvement happen only because the time was right, because the stars aligned. Take smoking, for example. I started doing that in real, dangerous, daily earnest when I was about 17. On pretty much every single new year's eve that followed until I was 31 years old, I resolved to stop. Those new year's resolutions lasted at most a few days. Why did I ultimately stop? Because I got pregnant with TH. I preceded the landmark cessation by getting absolutely ripping kneewalking drunk at a Who concert and lighting up so much that I'm pretty sure there was smoke emanating from my pores.

In other words, I had a big burst of a blow out and then...stopped. Period. Haven't had a cigarette since August 2000. And it didn't happen until I was damned good and ready for it, until the stars aligned with the Who, one exuberant night of overindulgence, beginning my third decade, and conceiving my first child. No way I coulda timed all that for a new year's eve.

And then there are the gradual changes. I couldn't have resolved to be less controlling and more patient and achieved that with the turn of a new year without being...really controlling and impatient. Nope. I had to have at least two children and some serious life lessons handed to me along with my ass over a period of a couple of years before I toned down my impatient, aggressive, mouthy, sassy attitude (yes, amazingly, it used to be worse). Not something I could have resolved to do and forced just because the calendar turned over once again.

My personal evolution has been one of punctuated bursts and periods of gradual change. No calendar could dictate the timing of these changes. Circumstance, maturity, developmental readiness...these are the real determinants of when changes occur, of how fast they happen.

It's not just me. It's all of us. TH wasn't a reader for so long, professed a hatred of it so frequently, that the Viking and I practically wrung our hands in consternation. Then, in what seemed to be an overnight burst of literacy, he became a reader. Everywhere he goes, a book goes with him. No well-timed flip of a calendar page could have determined it. It came in his own time, his own way, his own pace. Some of his other changes, such as being able to ride a bike, have come more gradually. Did they come when they were "supposed to"? Does it matter? Only if we pretend it does or adhere to a false construct that says so.

So, my resolution for this new year is no different from the one I try to make every day: to avoid building my expectations of change or measures of success around an artificial scaffold like a 12-month calendar or a public school classroom or the way it's "supposed to be." Let all things come in their own good time. You don't have a choice anyway, no matter what day it is.