Why intent matters only when it is owned

We are into another new year. We have once again made resolutions for the year ahead. Most of these commitments will likely fall by the wayside as the months pass. I started making resolutions early in my life. I realised soon enough that these had a habit of turning into to-do lists, which kept growing as the days passed. During my professional years, I would be presented with New Year diaries. I would pick up the first that came my way and transfer the previous year’s to-do work-at least those I was confident of completing-discarding the rest. The list would grow each day. Rather than succumbing to the depression of failure, I would promptly transfer a few of the old items to a new page. The dance would start all over again. It was a failure to honour the resolutions we make to ourselves.

Over time, I began to sense that this tendency to record intent without ensuring follow-through extended beyond a personal weakness. Our supervisors, particularly those from the civil department involved in the maintenance of our colonies, were adept at playing this game. They would stand submissively in front of you, displaying concentration on your instructions. Their notebooks would be open, fingers holding the pen flying across the page, noting down each word as a divine commandment. That would usually be the end of the matter. He knew that you would have forgotten most of your directives by the time he was summoned again, when the ritual would play out once more.

Gradually, I recognised this casual approach to commitments, including timelines, as an institutional habit, quietly normalised-one that expressed itself not only in paperwork, but also in everyday conduct. This transcended global boundaries. I was once travelling to a neighbouring country for work when I witnessed an exchange at the next table in the dining room. A group of locals sat waiting for breakfast. There was a flurry of activity as their superior, from another developed Asian country, entered the room. He reminded the others that they had ordered breakfast to be served at eight and that it would be improper to rush the kitchen before then. Another local arrived a little later and was loudly admonished for being five minutes late. He continued his harangue long enough for all of us to overhear that this was a habit that would inevitably reflect in the workplace. Yet respect for time need not always be enforced; in some places, and in some individuals, it is quietly internalised.

I was in Tokyo for a few meetings, and our representative would ask us to walk around the block if we reached the office early. His reasoning was that our early arrival would place an undue burden on the hosts’ other commitments. A respected technocrat in India was a stickler for punctuality; he declined wedding invitations, aware that our weddings are rarely on time.

Maintaining a diary or to-do list is meaningless without the conviction to honour resolutions, just as our collective apathy towards good governance is reflected in recurring winter pollution. Only owned intentions, matched by action, can prevent resolutions from becoming empty promises.

The writer, founder of Kala – Krazy About Literature and Arts, is an author, speaker, coach, arbitrator, and strategy consultant; views are personal