His initial reaction was to offer excuses.

It wasn’t so bad, it was an accident, everybody acts that way, everybody cheats from time to time…

But then he stopped cold.

Furious with himself. Excuses, excuses, excuses.

No more!

Instinctively he reached for the whisky.

Then, as if he was watching himself from a distance-viewing himself on a TV screen-he saw his arm slow.

Then it stopped.

No, my friend, that’s not the way it’s going to be this time.

He was going to change. Just like that guy on TV, he’d look back over his life, he’d make a list of all the bad things. And he’d set them right.

Making amends…

Jamie rose unsteadily, picked up the liquor, and poured it down the kitchen sink. He returned to the living room and eyed his cigarettes. Well, he knew he couldn’t give them up, not completely. But he was going to limit himself to ten a day… Wait, no, five. And he’d never smoke before noon. That was reasonable. That was mature.

He staggered into the bathroom and took a fiercely hot shower, then a freezing one. He toweled off and walked into his kitchenette, had half a bagel with no butter, and coffee without cream.

It was a very different Jamie Feldon who stepped from his apartment into the bright New England morning twenty minutes later, virtually sauntering to the parking lot. He dropped into the seat of his battered Toyota, started the engine, and headed for Route 128, which would take him to his office, twenty miles north of Boston. Normally the congestion drove him crazy. But today, he hardly noticed it. He was thinking about the possibility of a future real different from the disaster his life had been. He could actually foresee being content, being happy.

Making amends…

And yet, Jamie realized sitting at his desk later that day, it might be easy to work up the determination to stick to your moral convictions, but there were practical issues to consider, logistical problems.