In 2011 I lived in Cape Town, South Africa, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It’s an incredible city with an extensive history and a smorgasbord of cultures infused together. For about 6 months I lived in a house in the first suburb outside of town, Woodstock (the name only half alludes to what this town was like—for another day’s post). I had a great roommate and life was grand. The most unique thing about my living situation is we didn’t have internet at the house. And because we were pretty far from downtown, and the cafes in the area were only just starting to provide WiFi to customers, I went for prolonged amounts of time without an internet connection. It was a big adaptation to make, but once I did, I absolutely loved it. I averaged about two books a week—and I’m not a particularly fast reader—there was simply no other entertainment available. We didn’t get a DVD player until my last month there, and so mostly didn’t have TV. I spent a lot of my time reading and thinking.

The environment afforded me clarity that I had never yet experienced. I had the time and space to think about deep things—my philosophy of life, the world, our species, etc. One thing I kept coming back to was my personal philosophy, my morals, my principles. I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and it deeply influenced me. One of the central theses in that book is that the most effective people are principle-centered; their lives are not centered around their career, or their significant other, or family, but a set of principles that they deeply believe in and live through. I spent many an afternoon deciding what my own principles should be. It’s something I’m still working on, and will be a major component of the upcoming book. I arrived at three: Respect, Responsibility, and Resolve. They are all interrelated, and I’ll touch more on them in future posts.

But the impetus for me writing this today was the last one, Resolve. It’s a very emotional thing, resolve. I think of Viktor Frankl, and how he vehemently proclaims that one can choose their path, choose the way (s)he will live their life, regardless of circumstances. It’s powerful. And you need power to have resolve. We are powerful beings, and if we choose resolve, if we choose to have it, we can accomplish anything. It’s the basis for all achievement in human history. The United States resolved to go to the moon, and so they did. Much of Europe resolved to form a peaceful union, and thus the EU exists today. Larry Page and Sergey Brin resolved to organize the world’s information and make it more accessible and useful, and Google was born. Successful people have resolve. They make a choice that they will do or go after what they want, and they simply do it. “Hard” doesn’t matter. Obstacles don’t matter. Time and effort and sweat and tears don’t matter. I believe Resolve is one of the core tenets of accomplishing what we want in life. First we decide what we want, and second we make sure—do we really want it? Why do we want it? Do we really want it? And once we know we do, in our deepest of hearts, we resolve to do it, no matter what. Find your Resolve for what matters most. Let’s change the world.