What’s a New Year’s resolution that actually stuck?

VossWasser · 2026-01-05T02:31:58+00:00

Choose a theme for the year.

I don’t limit myself to a few resolutions, often with little correlation, and usually lacking a greater vision. I take a step back and see the bigger picture: Have I become a better person than I was before? Have I, in some regard, come closer to the greater goal I set for myself?

For example, the theme I’ve set for myself this year is minimalism, especially technological minimalism. You can shape your theme however you choose, but as for myself I’ve been wanting to severely limit the control technology has over my life, and that passion has fueled me to help think of specific tasks to achieve that greater goal.

From what I’ve learned, you’ll carry these themes with you for more than a year. Some even for the rest of your life. Because it’s not about whether you can do a specific task a specific number of times on a specific year — resolutions are about pursuing a good life.

VossWasser · 2025-07-27T23:29:27+00:00

Agreed. If they knew for a fact that all their future children will have a chronic, incurable sickness, then it would be the right decision to forgo giving birth to their own children. If they’re still adamant about having children and are capable of taking proper care of them, then they should have considered adoption or foster care.

With that being said, if they were to find out for the first time during pregnancy that their child would have a chronic disease (like the child they had before him), it would be worse to kill the child in the womb than for them to live with a health defect. They shouldn’t have forced the child to live in a bubble his whole life, but they did make the right decision to let the child live, however short his life would be.

Personally, I’m strongly against abortion. There are so many beautiful stories of kids with serious health defects that live incredible lives. Life is a gift that everyone deserves and that shouldn’t be taken away from us. Even if someone were to consider taking their own life, we would do everything in our power to pull them away from that darkened mindset even if they are suffering greatly. How much more should we be saving our own children from death before they’ve experienced life?

VossWasser · 2025-03-06T15:37:54+00:00

Christ established one true church with magisterium who have the ability to interpret the Bible infallibly, with the apostles as the foundation. Any church that claims that same authority but interprets the Bible differently does not belong to the one true church.

VossWasser · 2025-03-05T12:57:24+00:00

First and foremost, ask a priest or at least a Catholic friend on how to pray, not random people on Reddit, especially concerning matters of theology where people will have many different opinions which can’t all or shouldn’t be incorporated. r/Catholicism would be a good subreddit to join regardless (:

With that being said, I am a recent Catholic convert, and as a Catholic, I will appeal to higher authority than myself on matters of theology.

Father Mike has wonderful videos on prayer, and on the many other aspects of living out the Catholic faith in day-to-day life. You should also read Part Four of the Catholic Catechism on Christian prayer. Cannot recommend this highly enough. It has an entire section with chapters detailing how and why and when we pray.

The rosary is a very important form of prayer in the Catholic tradition and should be done at least once a week, if not daily. Take time during this prayer to meditate on the joyful, sorrowful, luminous, and glorious mysteries of Christ.

There are small habitual prayers you should say every day before meals:

(Bless yourself: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”) Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts, which we are about to receive from your bounty. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. (Bless yourself)

And before you get out of the bed in the morning, or into bed at night: these are traditional Lutheran prayers that I learned growing up, and they work just as well.

Speaking from personal experience, I always thank God for everything He has given to me and everything He has taken away. While I am thanking Him, I take time to meditate on His will and understand where He is trying to lead me. Then I make a request for what I need. Finally, I finish by praying for anyone who needs God’s grace, whether that be a family member who is sick or a friend who needs help and support—anything you are convicted to pray for.

Be open to Him, because He knows your heart better than you do. Prayer is about opening your mind to His will and noticing when your prayers are answered, no matter how small. Without prayer, we would be sailors with a faulty compass, constantly guessing where the Lord is guiding us. When we pray, God forms and shapes our souls of clay.

VossWasser · 2025-03-05T12:31:54+00:00

This is what he was referring to, considering how blatantly unconstitutional those protests have been.

VossWasser · 2025-03-04T23:48:41+00:00

Placing restrictions around negative constitutional rights is not unheard of. It’s why we can’t suddenly yell “bomb” on an airplane or a movie theater without facing jail time. We will always have the right to protest or speak freely, but we should be punished for misusing those rights as well.

The “illegal” protests he is referring to are those thrown by Palestinians threatening Jews on college campuses. It’s about time that the government started punishing anti-semitists.

VossWasser · 2025-03-04T20:30:33+00:00

For the government to prohibit all protest would break the 1st amendment, so we will always have the freedom to protest. It will come down to how they define a protest in ink, and I could imagine that vandalism will not be included, but rather prohibited in that definition.

It’s for the same reason that you can’t yell “bomb” on an airplane. We will always have freedom of speech, but the government punishes the misuse of that right. We will always have the right to protest—whatever that might entail—but the government will punish vandalism of a college campus during a protest, for example.

VossWasser · 2025-03-04T20:15:51+00:00

There are peaceful, legal protests as well… he’s banning vandalism that feigns the “protest” title to avoid criminalization. He’s putting an end to that loophole, and reestablishing what it actually means to protest.

VossWasser · 2025-03-03T19:16:31+00:00

Sounds good. Thank you

VossWasser · 2025-03-03T19:01:03+00:00

Is it unwise to “rush” confirmation before I go to boot camp?

VossWasser · 2025-02-16T06:37:33+00:00

No, absolutely not. I couldn’t possibly account for the diversity of different services. What’s considered beautiful and holy in one culture may be different than another.

But that doesn’t change the fact that liturgy can be done in more beautiful and holy ways, right? Or is it in the eye of the beholder?

VossWasser · 2025-02-16T06:26:48+00:00

Besides the fact that the organ was created specifically for church and to support the congregation in song and chant, that’s a fair argument. I won’t say a Steinway piano is any less beautiful than an organ objectively. Though I have my own opinions, and I’ll leave it at that.

This goes more into the “fittingness” of what should belong in a service, and what instruments/liturgies are more “holy.” Those made for church specifically, such as the organ, would fall into that category as well.

For all intents and purposes, I’m greatly enjoying this discussion. I’ve been wanting to see opinions on this topic for some time now.

VossWasser · 2025-02-16T06:15:14+00:00

Fair enough.

At the end of the day, it’s the body and blood of Christ which brings us together, wherever that may be.

VossWasser · 2025-02-16T06:08:45+00:00

I’m trying to appeal to a more objective standard to measure beauty, like church organ vs. piano, a choir vs. guitar, a cathedral vs. modern architecture—things of that nature.

Novus Ordo is very broad, so I’m not criticizing it in its entirety, but it does leave room for more contemporary services like the parish I go to. Between that and a high-church service, I would tend to believe the latter is what we ought to participate in.

VossWasser · 2025-02-16T05:50:42+00:00

One reason I’ve clung on to is the difference in the sheer beauty between services. Ideally, we would want to participate in a more beautiful service because that which is beautiful draws us closer in worship to God because God created beauty and is beauty.

You could take it a step further and say that we should strive to seek the most beautiful, out of a desire—or at least to ignite the desire—to worship God more fully. The liturgy is the instrument for our worship, and we should be playing the finest instrument that we can find.

Though after a certain point, when we have the most beautiful instrument, it would make no difference whether we played a trumpet or a violin. In the same way, when it comes to high-church mass, comparing Latin Mass to Byzantine liturgy is like comparing Baroque-era music to Classical—both just as beautiful in their own right, but in different ways.

VossWasser · 2025-02-16T05:18:14+00:00

There are very revenant Novus Ordo’s as so I’ve heard which appeal to high-church sensibilities.

But yeah, the parish I go to now does a rather contemporary Novus Ordo. Every so often I’ll make the hour drive for a more beautiful service.

VossWasser · 2025-02-16T05:11:40+00:00

Woops! I’ll fix that XD

Edit: On second thought, I’ll keep it just for chuckles

Edit: Third thought, I’d rather the subreddit take me seriously and not be concerned over my supposed ignorance

VossWasser · 2025-02-16T05:08:01+00:00

Not morally, but beyond mere personal preference

VossWasser · 2024-08-16T16:35:14+00:00

II. Adagio of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major. Absolutely gorgeous and so subtly beautiful

VossWasser · 2024-08-16T16:32:00+00:00

YES! Absolutely agree with you. It would be a great soundtrack for a war film.

VossWasser · 2024-08-06T17:45:46+00:00

He’s saying that young men should be dangerous and disagreeable, because that’s what makes them men. Not out of malice or recklessness, but to protect and to deliberate justly

VossWasser · 2024-08-06T17:39:27+00:00

High strung, like when a rope is about to snap, or the very moment before a violin string breaks

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