I had a problem with making resolutions. My problem started and ended with Pinky and The Brain. The Steven Spielberg’s cartoon featuring two lab rats, a tall goofy Pinky and a smallish megalomaniac, “The” Brain was my favourite cartoon in my early teenage years when one is highly impressionable.
Herein lay the start of my problem: I was impressed with Brain resolution every dawn, after a failed overnight mission, with a set face and a grim determination glinting from his eyes to “try and take over the world!” So I started making resolutions for my days, weeks, months and of course the popular “New Year Resolutions”. I also set some resolutions for before and after I get married. In fulfilling my resolutions I was met with partial success.
Some of the resolutions were incredibly stupid and ludicrous to begin with so had absolutely no chances of achievement. An example was my resolution to always be the tallest in all my classes, a resolution I made when I was in JSS 3 and the tallest in my class. I was accorded respect by the virtue of it, and it became the clincher in the battle to be the captain of my class and the captain of captains of my arm. When we got to SSS1, some new intakes from Federal Government colleges and Navy secondary schools were not only taller than I was but were slightly more brilliant. And then I began to fill out, apparently having had an early growth spurt. By the time I entered my first higher institution, I was of average height.
Then there were the ones made that had a very good chance of achievement but were only met by half-success due to lack of dedication. Most of these were made off-the-cuffs because it seemed like the right thing to make. Example is the yearly resolution to pay my tithe to the last kobo every given new year. However, by acts of omission or commission, I only managed to pay about half the total amount in any given year. Every time I heard a preaching about the positives of tithing and the repercussions of doing otherwise, I rededicate myself, only for some months. I have found that this is so because deep down, I do not believe that one has to pay tithe to a church. Though the principle is inviolate, the practise is not, as one gives back to God through helping others (without hoping for a reward) and not only through paying to a particular church or the other.
I guess at the stage when I was old enough to start paying tithes, I had become more mature and realized subconsciously that one had to believe logically in the underlying truth and fact of such resolution and one must be committed towards achieving it. By this time I had finished my one year compulsory IT after my ND programme and was about to embark on my degree. So I made new resolutions including finishing top of my class, remaining a virgin until marriage, having my own house before I marry, amongst others.
I eventually graduated as top of my class. However, I stumbled on my resolution to be chaste till marriage by listening to others. I had met the most wonderful girl in the world during my final year in school. She was in part three of a five year course, and I was at the stage where I thought it was okay to start a serious relationship, so I wooed her. She agreed and we started our relationship. She told me she was a virgin and I also informed her of my own resolution, so we found ourselves complimentary on that score. My final year in school was my best year as I finished valedictorian and had the love of a wonderful lady.
Then I went for NYSC. Secured in the love of my lady, I had no intention of partaking in the recreational sex that corpers are notorious for and was rest assured that she will also remain chaste till we get married. Until that fateful day, six months into my youth service.
We had gone to the state secretariat for our monthly General CD where I met some corpers from my school who insisted I must pass the night with them in the state capital. Since it was a Friday, I acceded, planning to return to my base the next day. During the course of the evening, I followed them to a drinking to a drinking joint, where we met other corpers from our school. As drinks loosen tongues, tales of exploits, both sexual and otherwise, where flying from every corner amidst rancorous laughter. Suddenly, I heard the name of my lady and I instantly became alert. One boy who finished from the same department as my lady was talking of how he slept with her in a closet during a departmental dinner. Before he finished talking, another was already midway into how he had slept with her several times in his room when she was still a jambite. By this time I was sweating from head to toe, shaking with rage, fury, anger and contempt. When a third guy claimed he was the one that actually dis-virgined her within two weeks of her resumption as a jambite, I found myself reaching for his jugular. The guys did not know the reason why I suddenly flew into rage and after we were separated, I left for my base that night.
I was hurt and aggrieved. I cried like a baby that night: she was my first girlfriend. By morning I had made a decision: I was going to also have my way with her as a payment for all the time, love and money I had invested and afterwards call the relationship off. Within the month, the secondary school where I was teaching went on vacation. I sought and got the permission to travel, so I journeyed to my alma mater. My anger had subsided but my quest for vengeance was waxing stronger. I had a plan.
I had not told my lady I was coming, planning to take her by surprise. She was surprised to see me, but more surprised that I arrived at 10:30pm! She was concerned that we would have to pass the night in the same room and given the sexual tension that had always existed between us that our virginity would not survive the night. I reassured her of my commitment to our chastity with a smile, telling her that my personal conviction was more moral than religious so I wouldn’t yield easily to temptation. Being an avid reader, I had called on resources from books I had read and had planned her seduction with military precision. She had no defence to my subtle manoeuvres. By 2 am, she was willing to have sex with me and I was more than ready. It was to my eternal shame that I felt a sticky liquid on the bed sheet after we finished, which on confirmation turned out to be blood. She was actually a virgin!
Instead of the joy of conquest, I felt the nadir of self-defeat. I had believed a bunch of drunken liars, who were out to increase their social rep, over my lady. I had allowed myself be used to defeat our resolution. I could only plead and reassure my lady of my undying love for her, as she cried softly beside me, and vowed that in my mind, heart and soul, I was already married to her. This was the most painful resolution I had broken. I wanted to make sure it was my last, so I embarked on a soul search.
After two months of soul search and looking back to my past resolutions, both fulfilled and fulfilled, I made a crucial discovery: Resolutions are made to be broken. The resolutions that become fulfilled are the ones that were successfully turned into goals. Any resolution that is built of vague statements, half-truths and non-truths will crumble like a pack of cards.
The difference between making just resolutions and setting goals is this: Goals come with a plan to be worked on day and night, resolutions are just statements with vague parameters. Any goal without a plan is just a resolution. Any goal that will be achieved has to have its plan and the execution of it worked on day and night. If I had a plan on how to get and use Human Growth Hormone, I would have been able to be the tallest in my classes (and suffer the consequences later). It was because I had a plan to read till I dropped that I was able to top my class.
What brain has is a goal, “To take over the world” and not a resolution, “I will be the best person to take over the world”. The only clog in his wheel is his sidekick, Pinky, a fun-loving quintessential NFA: No Future Ambition. The clog in my own will to remain chaste was surrounding myself and listening to derailing liars. I was only executing my plan; I was not working on the plan itself to make sure it becomes foolproof. Being humans, our plans must be reviewed periodically, since there is no perfect plan, to ensure its success. My plan was hinged on my lady being chaste. When I received fake information to the contrary, instead of reviewing my plan of me being chaste till marriage, I simply abandoned the goal.
The ultimate lesson I’ve learnt from the cartoon is what makes any goal achievable: Stick-to-itiveness. For any goal or resolution to succeed, one must stick to it and not quit, no matter the amount of time one fails. This I have found to be true in all facets of life. Once one is committed to achieving a sound goal one must continue on the journey to its destination. Being stubborn is a big part of being successful. So, I do not make resolutions anymore, I make goals and I have been achieving much more than my resolution-making days.
Fast forward some years, I am married to the same wonderful lady who has given me a beautiful set of twins. I now set goals, with constantly-reviewed plans to achieve them. I now have a building of my own in which I conduct my business and live in a rented building: my goal being to expand my means to the point where I can purchase a house right off rather than have an uncompleted building as home. And Pinky and The Brain is still my favourite cartoon.
My wife and I share a joke every now and then at night. As we get into bed, she will squeak in Pinky’s voice:
Wife: What are we going to do tomorrow morning, Femi?
I: Same thing we do every morning; Working to reach our goals!
And I mean it. NARF!
The stories are fictional. The lessons are not.


gorociano@gmail.com