By Andrew Hawes, PM — Jr. Warden
Welcome to 2025!
Here we are again, ushering in a new year and planning our resolutions for the upcoming months. As a newly-minted Past Master, I honestly expected that my role in the lodge this year would be more typical of what we’ve done in the recent past, where I would sit as Chaplain and offer any insights I might have to the new Master – but our new Master having been around this particular block a few times, and it being easier to find someone new to sit as Chaplain than be elected Junior Warden… well, here we are! My Masonic resolution for this year is to ensure that I provide good ritual when acting in the degrees that we anticipate having early in 2025. My Lodge resolutions for this year are to work with our purveyors and members to try and keep our headcounts accurate for dinners, keep our beverage selection varied, and attempt to get a Feast of Saint John to take place again in our lodge! On a personal level, I am resolving to try and keep my stress levels down, and to continue to improve myself as a person – to be slower to anger, quicker to forgiveness, and a better friend and family member!
So… noble goals perhaps, but really not great resolutions. If we want to be sure of achieving them, I think we should all make sure that our resolutions are “S.M.A.R.T.” – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. If you make a resolution to “be better” – what does that mean? How can you measure whether you are “better” than you have been before? When during the year do you expect to achieve the target “betterness?” Instead, make a resolution to “volunteer for at least two hours by March” – that’s very specific, and easy to judge if and when you’ve done it. Make your resolutions something you can achieve – don’t resolve to solve world hunger, for example, unless you have some insights into how to actually do that this year. Relevance is easier for most of us – I don’t think any of us will resolve to improve how quickly we turn around contract deliveries of potato options… unless that’s something you happen to do in your personal time. It’s just not relevant for most of us.
So really, I should revise the resolutions I’ve described above… but hey, these are resolutions for the new year. How many of us actually expect to achieve them anyway, really?
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