Pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth…

sloth noun 1 [ mass noun ] reluctance to work or make an effort; laziness: ORIGIN Old English: from slow + -th2. [We’ll ignore the three-toed sloth)

despair (Thesaurus) noun many parents feel pain and despair about their teenage children: hopelessness, desperation, distress, anguish, pain, unhappiness; dejection, depression, despondency, disconsolateness, gloom, melancholy, melancholia, misery, wretchedness; disheartenment, discouragement, resignedness, forlornness, defeatism, pessimism. ANTONYMS hope; joy.

PHRASES be the despair of my handwriting was the despair of my teachers: be the bane of, be the scourge of, be a burden on, be a trial to, be a thorn in the flesh/side of, be a bother to, be the ruin of, be the death of.

verb don't despair if you didn't win this time: lose hope, give up hope, abandon hope, give up, lose heart, be discouraged, be despondent, be demoralized, resign oneself, throw in the towel/sponge, quit, surrender; be pessimistic, look on the black side; archaic despond.

Unlike other sins, despair is by tradition the sole sin that cannot be forgiven; it is the conviction that one is damned absolutely, thus a repudiation of the Christian Saviour and a challenge to God's infinite capacity for forgiveness.

Okay, do you see my point here?

People are upset, to say the least, and now they’re facing the second wave of Covid19. it’s so hard to brace yourself for a worse onslaught than the one we have barely survived—at least we have survived so far, as the mortality rate keeps rising. But it’s no time to despair.

Without editorialiizing about this, I’ll just give you a few antonyms of despair to hang onto—and to practice.

Antonyms for despair; cheer, confidence, faith, joy, encouragement, hopefulness, peace, trust, happiness, comfort, joyfulness, pleasure, contentment, cheerfulness.

Antonyms for despair

· pleasure.

· peace.

· cheerfulness.

· confidence.

· faith.

· hopefulness.

· joyfulness.

· trust.

I rest my case.

decide verb [ with obj. ] come or bring to a resolution in the mind as a result of consideration: [ with clause ] : she decided that she liked him | [ with infinitive ] : I've decided to stay on a bit | this business about the letter decided me. ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense ‘bring to a settlement’): from French décider, from Latin decidere ‘determine’, from de- ‘off’ + caedere ‘cut’.

resolve verb 1 [ with obj. ] settle or find a solution to (a problem or contentious matter): the firm aims to resolve problems within 30 days. 2 [ no obj. ] decide firmly on a course of action: [ with infinitive ] : she resolved to ring Dana as soon as she got home. noun 1 [ mass noun ] firm determination to do something: she received information that strengthened her resolve. ORIGIN late Middle English (in the senses ‘dissolve, disintegrate’ and ‘solve (a problem)’): from Latin resolvere, from re- (expressing intensive force) + solvere ‘loosen’.

resolution noun 1 despite her resolution to remain calm, Shannon could feel her temper rising: intention, resolve, decision, intent, aim, aspiration, design, purpose, object, plan; commitment, pledge, promise, undertaking.

decision noun 1 a number of factors led me to this decision: resolution, conclusion, settlement, commitment, resolve, determination; choice, option, selection.

That kind of clarifies what I’m thinking. To me decisions are daily; resolutions are for the new year, which we are almost at.

I read somewhere, or maybe I just thought it, that you have only so many decisions you can make each day and after that you run out of will power, or energy, or—decisiveness? I know that for me it takes a lot of will to make and act on my first decision of the day, and that is, to go swimming. It’s not automatic, even after all these years.It’s not easy to go from a warm bed to a cool pool at six in the morning. I have to brace myself. I’s even harder if I wake too early and get involved in some writing or reading or thinking (or, lately, in solitaire). I have difficulty making the transition.

“dry thoughts in a dry land” I thought I was channelling TS. Eliot, but my memory plays tricks on me or my interpretation does. The line is “Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season”, from Eliot’s poem Gerontion (1920). I think of it often as i swim, but with a paraphrase of my misquotation: “dry thoughts in a wet pool”. (My inner dialogue never seems to stop, no matter what the outer circumstances are. Except maybe with Solitaire? I must stop. Soon. A New Year’s Resolution?)

Back to my daily decisions and the finite amount of will/energy allotted for them: at some time during the day I run out and I have to put off till tomorrow what today has nothing left for.

Like now.