Resolve to fail, early and often, in the new year.

As counter-intuitive as that sounds, it's the most sagacious advice I can give, based on six decades of experience.

That's because making a new year's resolution, whether giving up ice cream or completing a novel, is usually doomed to fail, as I judge by my own experience. It's why so many people do not make any resolutions in the first place.

But resolving to at least initiate an effort, and then following through, when success is not guaranteed: that is our existential pinnacle. Summoning the will, the courage, the effort, and then doing your utmost, is the noblest act a man or woman can execute.

Personally, I boast a history of failures: some noble, some not so much.

At 14, I set out to become a priest. I packed a trunk and left for St. Joseph's Seminary in Westmont, where it took three years till I saw with certainty how daunting was the distance between me and the Almighty.

At 17, I made ready for a stint in the NHL. It took less than one year to realize that a 60 mph slap shot, and out-racing all my brothers to the other end of the ice pond, were insufficient qualifications for launching a professional career, let alone winning a college scholarship.

Then, after purchasing Mel Bay's book for teaching myself the guitar, I took my first step toward rock stardom. With a voice that sounded, to me, as good as any on the radio, I sang an original song at Ali's Coffee House at 61st Street and South Pulaski. Afterward, my brother Net told me I was the second best performer that night, behind the musically more accomplished, and considerably more handsome Mike Dunbar, a college classmate.

Unfortunately for both our chances at celebrity, not even Mike would rank in the 80th percentile of the likely 10,000 amateur singer/songwriters in Chicago, who, inspired by the Beatles, had also strapped on instruments that year.

Still in search of my destiny at 21, I opted to become a tournament fisherman. We won our first competition at Lake Clinton in central Illinois when my fishing partner Tom Booth caught the only bass on a wintry fall day. The following spring, I took first place in a two day tournament on Lake Waubesa near Madison, spending the night in my van. But eventually discovering that fishing for money all but ruined fishing for fun, I cut short my Babe Winkelman emulations and got married, instead.

At age 23, I bought a house with my wife, Marianne, had a baby, and I immersed myself in family life and a financial state statistically short of abject poverty, taking an $8,000 per year job as an English teacher.

I tried to supplement my income by making homemade fishing lures, which failed to sell, but nonetheless saved us a tiny bit of money when I used them for Christmas and birthday gifts.

Then I adapted my woodworking skills to make bigger things, like couches and china cabinets and rocking chairs that were distinctive for their fruitwood hue (my having purchased several gallons of the stair on clearance from Hines Lumber), and for their prodigious weight.

Though I never sold a single piece, several still reside in my children's homes, less for their practical or sentimental value than for the risk of injury involved in lifting and removing them.

At age 30, it dawned on me that cerebral rather than manual pursuits were the smart way to go, so I thought I might write. But as a jack of many trades and a master of none, I felt ill equipped to confidently hold forth in ink about anything.

Except for fishing. Eureka. I would write fishing stories.

My first published piece appeared in Carolina Sportsman, followed by stories in Midwest Outdoors and Outdoor Notebook.

Though satisfying, at first, the life of an outdoors writer means a restricted number of topics, and an even more narrowly restricted range of audience.

So I branched out, writing 800 word commentaries on everything from politics to dog training for dozens of newspapers around the country. And that's where I am now. But in a field in which success is measured by attainment of syndication, a freelancer like myself could only dream of a gig like Leonard Pitts' or Garrison Keillor's.

Still and all, I am uncommonly happy, having never endured a sleepless night regretting a missed opportunity. For in spite of so many dead ends, it is the reaching, I believe, that defines and fulfills us as human beings.

As long as you keep your day job.

Former Evergreen Park and Oak Forest resident David McGrath is Emeritus English professor, College of DuPage.