new season...same bad weather

It is a new year and with a new year comes all sorts of resolutions for change. I say that I don't like the idea of a new year's resolution because you shouldn't have to have a special occasion to decide to change yourself for the better. I also find it pointless that people make resolutions and never keep them. We humans are such paradoxical creatures. It can be said that people never change. It can also be said that people change sometimes without rhyme or reason. Both statements are equally true yet completely contradictory. Still, despite my distaste for the empty ritual of new year's resolutions, I would be lying if I said that I had no hopes for change in this new year. It was my intention to begin a journey back toward a light that seems to be getting dimmer with each passing day. It has always been my hope to grow into a man of faith, integrity, honor, and above all love for my God. Instead it seems that I have grown into a man of cynicism, half truths, disrepute, and to say that my love for my God does not appear to be self evident is a sweet topping to a bitter dish. In the beginning it seemed that decisions effected only myself. Now my sin finds its way into the lives of other people. Why do we do the things that we do? In the moment the mind is clouded only by what there is to gain in that instant. How is it that I have changed so much that things I never thought myself capable of become recurring events. And how is it that I know this dilemma is not a new one, yet I find it baffling and nearly inescapable?