He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

A life is not won once and then owned. Whatever independence you have was assembled by daily decisions, and it quietly dissolves when those decisions stop, which is how people end up in a life they never chose without ever having agreed to it. The renewing is the possession.

Rather than reaching for grand resolutions, find the one place where you have been coasting on a decision made years ago. Reopen it this week, even briefly. Whether or not anything changes, choosing it again makes it yours.