about it!

If you feel that you will _never_ begin good ways unless you do so at
once, then begin! But I am not sure that I should advise you to make your
Resolution at once, though I should like you to make your Plan. I should
like you to plan your day while you are here, and write it out: you will
not do much with Resolutions unless you write them. Plan what time you
will get up and go to bed (you should have a conscience about both);
settle a plan of your reading,--what books you want to read during the
first year, what poetry to learn, what subjects to study. Plan it all out,
and then seal it up, and keep it till Christmas comes. Then think over it,
and pray over it, before New Year's Day, and then start your definite
resolutions with the new year.

But are you to fritter away the time between this and then? No, carry out
your ideas of reading sensible books and doing kind things for friends and
poor people, and saying your prayers and reading the Bible, and write down
every day exactly how much you did. Let your resolution be to keep a
record of these months, rather than a resolution to keep to a detailed
plan. Keeping a record is self-discipline in itself, it means
self-examination every night. If it shows you to be silly and idle and
unpersevering, it will make you ashamed of yourself. Also it will give
you some idea of how much time you can really count on getting. See how
your plan works before you promise God to keep it, and then you will not
make unwise resolutions at the New Year.

In arranging one's life, it is well to take our Lord's three divisions of
Duty,--Prayer, Alms, and Fasting,--and see how our life and our plans
stand this test.