Dwight Fletcher | The power of inertia

The new year is a natural time for self-evaluation. We take stock of our lives (sometimes unofficially) and assess our progress. For some, the self-appraisal has left us disappointed, confused, disillusioned and wondering how come we’re not moving ahead as desired. One of the universal aspirations of human beings is the desire to improve. God put that desire in us. We all want to grow, get better, and make something of our lives. So, we make resolutions and promises to ourselves about what we’re going to change and what we will do differently to advance. Sadly, however, many of us year in and year out don’t realise those promises.

This year you can emerge from the cycle of disappointment and setback, and be the best you that God designed you to be. If we’re to emerge, one of the things we need to understand is the power of inertia in our lives. Inertia comes from physics, but the term is applicable to our lives. The law of inertia states that an object will stay still or keep moving at the same speed and in a straight line, unless some external force acts upon it. This Newton Law helps to explain a lot of how the world works. Like why the earth rotates around the sun or how the balls on a pool table move when the cue hits them.

This law is also relevant to more than physics. Inertia can be applied to our spiritual lives, human behaviour, emotional/psychological behaviour, among other things.It’s the reason we stay in a job we don’t like, longer than we should; it’s why we finish watching a terrible movie that we’re not enjoying, or default to some social media page when we’re bored.

MISGUIDED WAYS

Inertia isn’t all bad; it explains a lot of positive behaviours as well. Many people, for example, find it easier to continue on a diet or an exercise programme once they’ve established a rhythm of good habits, and it’s easier to keep going than break and start over. It’s human nature to keep doing familiar things the same way we’ve always done them, until some new force comes along and changes things.

We come to every new year with high hopes of making a definite change that will bring new hope, direction, peace, prosperity, happiness, and a myriad of other good things. We make New Year’s resolutions that seem reasonable, but year after year we don’t see many of our plans realised. This may be because weren’t taking our inertia into consideration. Some of us are stuck with destructive habits, unhelpful thoughts and set in misguided ways.We may be stuck, and it’s going to take more than good wishes to break the power of inertia in our lives.There are areas in our lives that are currently in motion. The way we operate in business, our approach our spiritual, relational, professional, and academic areas of our lives are in motion, but we may be fuelling our movement with faulty understanding.

We oftentimes have opinions that are based on prejudices, perspectives, fears, attitudes, points of view, beliefs about God, and political opinions, that we’re sure are correct and everyone else is wrong, but our beliefs may be faulty and untrue.

Though we make good and noble resolutions, we need to change if we’re to accomplish them. If we don’t take the power of our inertia into consideration, we will be barrelling in the wrong direction. An object will continue to go in the same direction at the same velocity unless impacted by another force.