Glitches in Your Transcendent Self

Why it's so hard to live up to promises.

With the turn of the New Year, we have reached resolution season. With 2025 standing before us as a blank slate, we can stand on the precipice of the end of 2024 and resolve that this is the year we will give up smoking, drop that extra weight, or put in for that promotion. These are aspirations we likely have long-harbored, but the act of making them a New Year’s resolution gives them a special status. They are now more than mere intentions. But what exactly are New Year’s resolutions? When you think about it, they are strange things.

Promises, Promises

New Year’s resolutions seem to be a form of promising. For example, Steven may promise Stephen to fill out all the forms on Monday to submit their ethics article to the journal they discussed. In doing so, Steve has declared his intention to do the paperwork and send off the piece. But he could have done that by saying, “I plan on submitting it on Monday,” or “I hope to get it done by Monday.” Both of these also voice an intention, but neither is a promise.

In his book Doing Things with Words, the British ordinary language philosopher of the mid-20th century, J.L. Austin, called acts like promising “perlocutionary acts,” that is, they use words more than just to convey information. We use words not just to say things but to do things, he argues. By saying the words “I bet you $10 that the Baltimore Ravens will win the Superbowl,” not only means that I believe it will happen, but further that if it does not come to be, I will give you $10. If someone says “I do,” then in one context it simply means that, yes, that person would like cream in their cup of coffee, however, in a different context it means that person is now married. Perlocutionary acts are cases in which we not only say something but actually do something when we speak.

Promising is a perlocutionary act. When Steve promises Stephen to send off their article, he not only states his plans but also adds a moral element to them. By including the words “I promise,” Steve has entered into an ethical contract. Stephen can rely on Steve to do it on Monday, and if Steve fails to execute on his promise, he invites Stephen’s condemnation.

Of course, there may be an unexpected situation of such magnitude that no one could be expected to live up to their bargain—say, Steve had an unscheduled heart attack—but baring such happenings, by including “I promise,” Steve is now honor-bound to do it.

Who decides if the unexpected circumstances are sufficiently serious to let Steve off the hook? It is in Stephen’s hands. By being the one who received the promise, he now determines the ongoing terms of the contract.

That is why it is odd to think of resolutions as promises. The person who makes the promise and the person who receives the promise are the same person. As such, there is no one to hold the promisor to account; without that, we don’t seem to have a promise.

Yet we do.

I, Me, Mine

But when we make New Year’s resolutions, there actually are two people involved because there are multiple you’s. We can think of one as the temporal self, the self-in-time, the you of any given moment. This is the being who has the properties that you now possess: your weight, your height, your knowledge, your habits, your possessions, your job. Think of all the phrases that describe you—those are the properties of your self at this moment in time.

There is, however, another self, the transcendent self, the self-through-time. We change. We grow. The various properties of the self at any given moment may never again be aspects of the self. Yet, you may be the person who used to believe in Santa Claus, who used to like movies you now cannot stand, who was in love with that person who broke your heart but whom you have thankfully gotten over. The kid who ate paste in kindergarten may now be your mayor, and in one sense, he is still that person, but in another sense, he hopefully is not. Our transcendent self is the collection of all of the temporal selves and has the ability to make choices that affect the development of future temporal selves.

When we mess up, violate our moral code, we may plead to those we hurt, “that is not who I am.” In one sense, that is obviously false. It is who you are because you are the person who did it. There is a temporal self who has the property of doing that. But in a deeper sense, it can be true. There may be one-time glitches in the transcendent self, which you will make sure never reoccur. The transcendent self must include those foibles of the past, the ones that cause us to blush seemingly for no reason to those around us when they pop back into mind, but they do not have to define the temporal self; we can choose to make amends, to develop morally, to become a better self.

This Year Will Be the Year

So, if we have two selves in ourselves, then we have what we need to make a promise. As January enters and the temporal selves of 2025 ready themselves to come into being, our current temporal self can make a promise to our transcendent self. The transcendent self contains our potential, the perfect self we could be. Our temporal self can use that as a measuring stick. We can see where we objectively fall short of the person we subjectively want to be. What are the elements of my current temporal self that I no longer want? What are the properties of a future temporal self that will make me more like the perfect self I have constructed in my transcendent self?

When we see those, our temporal self at the end of 2024 can promise our transcendent self to become more like the perfect self it contains. Our temporal self is now one promising, and our transcendent self is now the holder of that promise. The resolution thereby has a deeper feeling to it. It is not a mere intention. Now, it has moral teeth to it. If we fail to uphold our end of the bargain, our transcendent self can no longer allow the temporal self the excuse, “That’s not the person I am.” By reneging on our promise to ourselves, we are shaping who the transcendent self is at the same time that we are bringing about an inferior temporal self at that future time.

Making New Year’s resolutions thus requires two equally profound activities. The first is to project yourself into the future, to reflect on who you are and who you hope to be. You must construct a perfect self, not in Walter Mitty fashion—mere fantasy selves you wish you had been—but an actual self you could be at your best. The second is to formulate a plan for minding the gap between those current temporal self and the perfect self you construct. The key is that, like any promise, it must be something you actually could achieve.

Both of these tasks are well worth undertaking as they allow you to fully be yourself, claim your autonomy, and be not just the person you are but the person you could be, the person you decide to be. Therefore, even if you fail in your resolution, the reflection that leads to it is intrinsically valuable.

So, let us all, therefore, resolve to resolve. Let one New Year’s resolution be to make a New Year’s resolution; even if you fail to satisfy that resolution, you will succeed in resolving it in the first place. And with that, you will be a better you…whoever you end up being in 2025.