Have you made your New Year’s resolutions? It’s not too late… and it’s never to late to add another. Did you know that New Year’s resolutions often cure, sometimes even when we fail to keep them? How can this be possible?

A New Year’s resolution is a promise to change ourselves. Sometimes, even when the promise fails, a change succeeds.

Cures

A cure is a change to the cause of an illness.

An illness is cured when it’s cause has been successfully addressed, when the signs and symptoms of illness have faded and gone, when no more medicines are needed. Most illnesses are minor, easily cured. We don’t even take medicines for many of our illnesses. We just cure them naturally. Most medicines don’t cure. Most cures don’t come from medicines.

Most cures are trivial. Most illnesses are trivial, and easily cured. We get a cold, indigestion, food poisoning, influenza, COVID, a cut, a bruise, a burn – and it is cured by our natural healthiness. These cures are so trivial that they are completely ignored by our current medical paradigm. We have no medical test for “common cold cured” nor for a bruise “cured.”

Some illnesses are repeating, cured one case a a time. In a different case, the same type of illness might be cured once and for all by a different cure. An ingrown toenail is cured by a simple surgery – but it may reoccur if the cause is not addressed.

In the theory of cure, there are three types of illnesses we might cure with a New Year’s resolution: illnesses, diseases, and sicknesses. What’s the difference?

Illness, Disease, Sickness

“A person goes to the doctor with an illness – and goes home with a disease.” – source unknown. Their work gives them time off for “sickness.“

Illness, disease, and sickness – and cure as well, are judgements. The difference is who makes the judgement.

An illness is what we feel, what we want to be rid of, what we want cured. It is cured when we believe it has been cured. It might have been diagnosed – or it might not be a diagnosable disease.

A disease is what a doctor diagnoses. Some diseases, like osteoporosis, are diagnosable, although the patient senses no illness. A disease is cured when the doctor says it is cured. Unfortunately, most doctors avoid the word “cured.” There is no medical test for common cold cured, nor for osteoporosis cured.

A sickness is what our communities perceive as an illness. A sickness might match an illness or disease – or be the totally independent view of a community that accuses “He’s sick!” Although often cured, our communities rarely judge a sickness to be cured, although we might sometimes hear the phrase “That cured him!”

In the theory of cure, a curable illness might be an illness, disease, or sickness. The theory of cure is about curable illnesses – and for simplicity often uses the term illness for all curable illnesses.

A New Year’s resolution normally cures a chronic or repeating illness, like a chronic Sunday morning hangover, that the person addresses themselves on a case by case basis, without visiting a doctor. It might cure a disease, like hypertension, that the patient never noticed. It might cure work or school tardiness, a sickness that the person is aware of, and the employee is aware of – but no doctor is expected to treat. Or, it might cure an illness like being overweight, the patient’s view, that was diagnosed as the disease obesity by a doctor, and observed by friends and even strangers in unflattering comments about their sickness. Unfortunately, none of these three can be “cured” and proven to be cured in our current medical paradigm. Modern medicine ignores most cures. It also ignores the causes of most cures – they are not medical.

Attribute Illness Cures

An attribute illness, a curable attribute illness has a cause that is a thing, and the illness is cured when the cause is changed, transformed such that the signs and symptoms of the illness disappear.

New Year’s resolutions tend to be processes (or the intentional abstinence from an unhealthy proces, like eating or drinking too much) not things. We promise to be good, to take care of ourselves. We don’t see buying a new car as a “resolution” – even if it is an expensive cure for a flat tire. Driving a new car (and not the old – potentially unsafe car) is a healthy process caused by the purchase. There are many examples of attribute cures that might occur at New Year’s.

However, most curable attribute illnesses are easily cured during the year. We don’t need to make a New Year’s resolution to cure a cut, a bruise, an ingrown toenail. Even the common cold, influenza, and COVID are easily cured by our natural healthiness – without the need for a New Year’s resolution. Of course, when we are healthier, we get fewer colds – and cure them faster. The same is true of any curable illness. Even when a New Year’s resolution doesn’t cure, our goal is to improve our healthiness – and the result often creates or improves our cures.

A New Year’s resolution that cures an attribute illness would need to address a cause that has been with us for some time, causing an illness. Such an illness might appear to be cured by coincidence, or accident – or perhaps a miracle?

Peter bought a new pair of shoes to celebrate the new year. He threw his old tattered boots in the garbage, and his feet took on new life. That pesky ingrown toenail, that was happening every six weeks or so, simply faded away. Cured. It wasn’t until six months later he realized he had been cured. And the cause of the cure? No longer important.

The illness was never diagnosed by a doctor. Peter had cured himself, one case at a time as the problem grew large enough to annoy him. And now it’s gone. We might ask, “was the illness cured by the new shoes, or by getting rid of the old shoes?” That’s just an academic discussion – a cure is a cure.

Of course, not every new shoe cures an illness – even when illness is present. Someone who buys a fashion shoe, one only worn once a month, or perhaps once a year – will not cure any shoe illness. To cure, the causal attribute must be changed. The cure proves the cause.

We might cure an old illness with many different changes in our selves, or our possessions. We might cure an illness, disease, or sickness with a one-time attribute, change to our diet, our body, our mind, our spirits, our communities, or our environments. But none of these cures are medical – they cannot be documented medically. Medical cures require a medicine.

Causal Illness Cures

A causal illness is caused by a life process and cured by a change to, a transformation of a life process – which also might be a new process, or the ongoing removal of a process. A causal illness cure is distinguished from the an attribute illness cure – because it requires an ongoing action (or ongoing intentional negative action). Causal illnesses are generally repeating or chronic – and we must address the repeating or chronic nature of the cause to produce a cure. We might cure scurvy, an attribute illness, with supplemental Vitamin C, but we can’t cure an ongoing Vitamin C deficiency with a one-time supplement consumption, the processes that cause the disease must be addressed.

Most illnesses cured by New Year’s resolutions are causal illnesses – illnesses with a process cause – often referred to as lifestyle illnesses. Life is a process. Living is a complex process of exercise, rest, and harmonies in our diet, body, mind, spirits, communities, and environments. When we change a life process, sometimes we cause illness, sometimes we cure.

Jane had “smoker’s cough.” All her friends knew the cause of her sickness, her illness – was her smoking habit. Sometimes, while she was smoking, someone would mutter under their breath, “… have another cigarette.” Jane, and all her friends, knew the cure. On new year’s eve, Jane resolved to quit smoking – and she quit – and six months later, less than a year, the cough was gone. Cured. But, there was no diagnosis. This cure, like the new shoes cure, is not a recognized medical cure, but it is a cure nonetheless.

New Year’s Resolutions

“Unhappiness is our brain’s natural default state. Happiness is a complex skill that we can build to relieve this natural unhappiness.” – Why You’re Unhappy, Loretta Graziano Breuning, 2023.

We make resolutions because we are unhappy with our lives. We often think of being unhappy as abnormal, but, Loretta Breuning advises – we are naturally unhappy. Why? Because unhappiness drives us to better situations. When we are unhappy on New Year’s Eve, we make resolutions to improve our health, our happiness.

The top new year’s resolutions according to Bing are:

1. Get fit and healthy
2. Learn a new skill
3. Read more books
4. Travel more
5. Reduce stress
6. Save more money
7. Spend more time with loved ones
8. Volunteer your time
9. Get organized
10. Live life to the fullest

We don’t choose a new year’s resolution because we are perfect. We don’t choose a resolution because we are healthy. We focus our attention on our problems, on our current illnesses – in many cases, on illnesses that are below the threshold of a medical diagnoses. We make a resolution, because we want a cure.

1. Get fit and healthyWhen we improve the healthiness of diet, body, mind, spirits, and communities many illnesses can be cured. There are dozens, possibly thousands of possibilities, even just in diet. Eating unhealthy foods can lead to ongoing deficiencies and toxicities. Healthing our diet – can cure. Healthing is a verb. Sometimes a cure comes not just from a healthy change, but from a more forceful action, like curing obesity with a carnivore diet. But officially, obesity is incurable. Our medical systems do not track cures, much less cures created by dietary changes. When we promise to improve health our body with exercise perhaps even with healthy rest, many illnesses can be cured. In many cases – the illness that is cured was below the level of a diagnosis, not medically recognized.
2. Learn a new skillLearning a new skill is an attribute change. We change our abilities and as a result, many problems, including illnesses, might be cured by our new abilities.
3. Read more booksReading is a process. Reading “more books” can facilitate ongoing improvements in our life by exposing us to more ideas, making us more aware of ourselves, our illnesses – and finding cures. We don’t need to read a health book to learn how to cure our car, to understand our neighbors, or to relax after a stressful day at work. When we cure by reading – a specific cure might be difficult to recognize. Life goes on. Healthier.
4. Travel moreWe often die from the legs up. We start with a cane progress to a walker, then a wheelchair, and finally to a hospital bed. As we die, we stop travelling. Travel proves we are still alive, exercises our aliveness. Travelling can sometimes cure specific cases of disease. SAD – seasonal affective disorder is caused by the absence of sunlight in the north – and a case of SAD might be cured by a trip to the south. Modern medicine recognizes treatments for SAD, but not cures.
5. Reduce stressStress can be healthy, or unhealthy. When we resolve to reduce stress, we are often resolving to remove unhealthy stress on our mind or spirits – not our body. Illness, disease, and sickness are judgements. As mental stress rises, unhealthiness often rises slowly – creating illnesses we are barely aware of, vague, nagging problems that cannot be diagnosed – but are real. In some cases, symptoms of stress rise up and fall back as our stress rises and falls or as our healthiness falls and rises. Reducing stress cures. In most cases – the illness that is cured was not recognized as an illness, much less a cured case.
6. Save more moneyCan saving money cure illness, sickness, or disease? Saving does not cure directly, but focusing our attention on saving money – we can reduce stress. Spending responsibly also improves confidence in ourselves. And we have money set aside, in case we get sick.
7. Spend more time with loved onesOur healthiness and our unhealthiness is not limited to diet, body, mind and spirits. We might be loved in our local communities, or perhaps trapped in unhealthy communities. Sometimes, our families are unhealthy communities. Our “loved ones” are our healthy communities. Communities are about helping others. Spending more time with our loved ones improves our healthiness – and can cure illnesses in many ways. But when gramma cures us with a minor surgery to a broken fingernail, or cures our nonsense with a conversational whack on the side of the head – our medical systems look the other way. The cure is not medical.
8. Volunteer your timeWhen we volunteer, we health ourselves and our communities. We raise our confidence, our spirits, and reduce our stress. Volunteering can cure problems – illnesses – in our communities, even as it cures the volunteer.
9. Get organizedDisorganized lives are stressful. Stress causes illness. When we are disorganized – we are less able to spend time with loved ones. When we are disorganized, it’s harder to volunteer, to help others. Getting organized facilitates curative actions. But getting organized is complicated – there are dozens of ways to be disorganized, and thousands of ways to get organized, to cure a disorganized life, one resolution at a time.
10. Live life to the fullestDepression is depressing. Not travelling can be depressing. When we resolve to live life to the fullest, we enable problem solving, enabling cures.

Many New Year’s resolutions are causal cures – often intended to cure illnesses that are rarely if ever diagnosed.

Of course sometimes they work, and sometimes not.

When a new year’s resolution works, we seldom notice, and rarely use the “cured” word. I resolved to quit smoking on New Year’s Eve in 1979. I cured my smoker’s cough, although it was minor. I prevented worse diseases from occurring. But, once I quit, once I cured it, I forgot about the cough.

When our doctors encounter a New Year’s resolution cure, often many months later, they might say something like “I don’t know what’ you’re doing, but keep doing it.”

And when our resolve fails – we forget that as well. It’s easy to make a resolution – and then forget about it. We should not view this as a failure. Making a resolution can be the first step to a cure, a step that sometimes needs to be repeated. To quote Mark Twain,

“Quitting smoking is the easiest thing in the world.
I know because I’ve done it a thousand times.”

Resolving is a natural, healthy process. We notice a problem. It might be an illness, or below the level of illness. We know it can’t be solved in an instant, nor a day, nor a week, so we resolve – for the year. We might hope the resolution sticks longer.

We resolve – we try to change something to solve the problem, to cure it. Sometimes we succeed. And life goes on. We forget about it. Sometimes we fail. And life goes on. And we try something else. Or we put up with the problem. Life is versatile, tolerant, always changing. Change can cause illness, and change can cure. Dead things have no intentions, no resolutions to change. Dead things don’t experience illnesses, nor cures.

Life is curative. Resolving is a curative act. New Year’s Resolutions are designed to cure.

to your health, tracy
Author: A New Theory of Cure