Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.” – Benjamin Franklin (The Autobiography)
Happy New Year!
No single day of the year seems to possess the same degree of promise, and hopeful aspirations, as does New Year’s Day. No matter how many of the previous year’s resolutions we have broken, or entirely forgot about, this year will always be different, right? How do we know that? Because we only made these new resolutions five minutes ago, and still believe that we have it within us to see them through (with any luck, at least to February). If you don’t believe that this is common to most people, check out the statistics of how many gym memberships are started in January, and then cancelled within the next three months.
My “problem” is this: three years ago, I made a list of permanent resolutions that I vowed never to renege on. What I did was to take my daily “To Do” List (something that I never strictly adhered to) and started to call it a “Must Do” List. I know what you’re thinking. Who would do such a remarkably stupid thing? Well, I did. And, of course, the next question is, Why would you want to do such a dumb thing as that? I guess my initial reason was because, after six decades, I was simply tired of making daily (and annual) resolutions which, for the most part, I never followed through with. But the main reason for creating a “Must Do” List was because I was finally willing to commit, wholeheartedly, to a philosophy for daily living which I had created for myself – something I call The Pono Principle (Balboa Press, 2017).
Simply stated, Pono is the Hawaiian philosophy of doing the right thing in all areas of one’s life. In my book, I share personal stories from my life, reflecting on how “doing the right thing” has always been the ultimate answer to any life challenge I have ever faced. At the end of every chapter, I share a life lesson that, oftentimes, reveals where I have completely failed to practice pono myself (in a certain situation), or how difficult it has been for me to adhere to The Pono Principle on a daily basis. These life lessons are but mere reminders to the reader that “living pono” is a practice based on progress, not perfection.
One of the life lessons I discuss in The Pono Principle has to do with my morning beachwalks in Wailea, where I live. For far too many years (i.e. most of my life), I was the type of individual who would never have thought about picking up litter which I hadn’t discarded myself. Somewhere, within my rationalizing brain, I would make the case that it wasn’t my responsibility to clean up after other litterbugs – let “someone else” deal with it, I would think. (It’s difficult for me to write these words right now, such is my guilt). But, then a miracle happened.
One morning, while taking my beachwalk, I not only thought about picking up someone else’s discarded cigarette butt – I even made a conscious decision to pick it up – and then, most importantly, I took the necessary pono action step by actually picking it up and carrying it to the nearest garbage receptacle. This was a life changing moment in time for me. It is true to say that, because I was writing a book at the time about doing the right thing in all things (i.e. Pono), I had a moment of clarity that literally stopped me in my tracks and beckoned me to pick up this one cigarette butt. It may have been my first enlightened moment of “other consciousness,” a foreign concept to the person I was the day before.
But on this day, I chose to remove the blinders from my eyes – but not just to let God’s light shine upon me. On this special morning, I allowed the light of God to shine from within me. And that is what has made all the difference in my life ever since. As a spiritual pilgrim, trying everyday to follow the path God sets before me, I now try to look for every opportunity to get out of my self, and to be more conscious of others. Some may ask, “At the end of the day, what does one discarded cigarette butt mean to anyone?” (The “old” me would have very likely asked that question). What I learned that morning is that this is not my planet, it is our planet, and every single one of us bears a common responsibility to care for it.
* * *
So, guess what happened this morning? It’s New Year’s Day, and I’m taking my morning beachwalk in Wailea. At the very moment I arrive at the beach, and am about to head south on the sidewalk, I spot some broken glass on the ground. And I’m not talking about a small amount of glass here. Someone had obviously dropped a sizable glass bottle on the cement pathway, so there was glass everywhere – several large broken pieces, a lot of small pieces, and a million tiny shards. Of course, my first reaction was to look upward to the sky, and smile that acknowledging smile when I know that I just had a “God shot.” It is also customary, when I hear God’s gentle whisper, for me to drop to my knees. And so I did – as I began to pick up the shattered pieces of glass, scattered all about me, with my bare hands.
Kneeling on the pathway, picking up someone else’s broken bottle, reminded me of the life lesson I had learned three years earlier, and related in The Pono Principle. I couldn’t help to think that this was God’s way of demonstrating to me that I need look no further than this broken bottle to find my New Year’s resolution for today. Simply stated, He was telling me, “Robert, you don’t need to ever make another resolution. Just practice the Pono Principle. After all, you wrote the book. Now, go live it everyday.”
And so I shall.
