At the beginning of each year, people talk about the "New Year's Resolution". In other words, it is the time of year to remind people of acting on something to achieve some goal in the year ahead. Remember the adage: "一年之際在於..." Most people start earnestly, but then slip to oblivion. It takes some will power to do something tenaciously. One resolution is better than no resolution. Nobody is perfect. We always feel that we need to improve ourselves somehow. No wonder there are tons of books in the shelf section of "Self Improvement" in bookstore.
The top 10 New Year's Resolutions this year are something like Spend More Time with Family, Fit in Fitness, Tame the Bulge, Enjoy Life More, Learn Something New, Quit Smoking, Quit Drinking, etc etc etc. Except the last two, all others are hard to quantify. They are just too loose or vague to enforce, let alone achieving the goal.
As usual I have something that I want to improve & some goal I want to achieve. But it is personal & I don't want to list it here. However, I also found that it is always come in handy to have something available in your pocket you'd like to use whenever you feel like it. For me it is a bonus on top of the resolution. That something is "日行一善", no matter how insignificant it is. But first what is "善"? It is something good. What is the criterion of good? Well, "己所不欲,勿施於人" is close. But it is passive. The active side of this is "己所欲,施於人". "日行一善" is in between as I see it. For example, if you don't like someone bumping on you in the street, you don't do the same to others. If you like people say 'good morning' to you, say the same to others first. Of course in human behavior, there is no strict & hard rule that "放諸四海皆準". To be more flexible & practical, I add "Common Sense" in my pocket. "日行一善" is the guideline & "Common Sense" is the first order correction to the guideline whenever I think things don't make sense.
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