What will 2023 bring to me? What will I bring to 2023?
Pondering non-binding resolutions for the new year
By Rick Alloway
Greetings for the new year, gentle reader. I hope you are entering 2023 brimming with optimism following a joyous holiday season, though I am well aware your mileage may vary based on your own personal circumstances. That’s why I have chosen to look at New Year’s resolutions this week.
I look forward to the holidays every year. And every year they slip past quickly despite my futile attempts to slow down the inevitable march of time.
I love the sensory treats the holiday season dishes up annually — the music, the lights, the food. But I also greatly value the way people seem to treat each other for these few weeks at the end of each year. We seem to slow down (at least a bit) and our normally routine greetings and interactions take on a more genuine sense of compassion and honesty.
But then…
The holidays pass. The lights and decorations come down. It’s what my wife Shelley calls “the dark times” until spring blooms grace our yards again. And we too easily resume business as usual until, as Amy Grant sings on one of her Christmas albums, “the season comes ‘round again.”
As a result, every January, I find myself returning to a favorite lyric by Paul Williams from “The Muppet Christmas Carol” about the challenge to keep the fellowship of the holidays going once they are behind us:
“It is the season of the spirit.
The message if we hear it
Is make it last all year.”
Make it last all year. A heady challenge. That leads me to News Year’s resolutions.
Let me say up front that I don’t make any. I used to. But I was terrible at keeping them. And apparently, I was in good company. According to a 2016 national study, while slightly more than 40% of Americans claimed to have made resolutions, just under 10% reported sticking with them through the year.
My failed attempts with resolutions — however well-intended — caused me to reconsider how I should approach my desire to make improvements in my life. I have come to realize the sense of a “clean slate” that comes with each new year is more about the opportunity to make incremental gains than in making cold-turkey changes, which are likely doomed to failure out of the starting gate.
As a result, let me propose some topics on which I hope to make progress during the coming 12 months. I do this partially to see which of these might resonate with you, but also to hold myself accountable by committing to the publication of a list I plan to revisit in December 2023 when I will take stock of any and all progress.
I’ve organized my thoughts into three distinct but related themes:
— Taking better care of my physical health.
— Taking better care of my mental health.
— Taking better care of the health of my community.
I’ll start with the physical side of things.
I’m too heavy. I have been for far too long. And now, in my late 60s, I am increasingly mindful that if I ever plan to make some gains in making some losses, I need to get after it. My joints will thank me. And while I know a drop in weight may prevent children from stopping me on the street to ask whether they are on the naughty or nice list, it’s a change I need to pursue this year — both for my physical and mental well-being. Shelley and I are just a few years away from our 50th anniversary. I want to be around for that.
Besides changes in diet (no more loaf of toast at breakfast), this goal also means taking more time for exercise. Honestly, I don’t enjoy working out. I don’t think I have ever experienced the endorphin rush friends describe from their workouts. And my current weigh limits some of my exercise options. But at least now that temperatures are back to positive numbers I can get out and walk again on a regular basis.
In tandem with taking better care of my physical health, I want to make gains in the care of my mental health.
If you have felt more anxious since the start of the COVID pandemic, you are not imagining it. The World Health Organization estimates a 25% increase in the number of people experiencing anxiety and depression world-wide. Our mental health professionals on campus have cautioned us of similar stress level increases among our students, faculty and staff.
As a result, I hope to make incremental gains this year in mental health measures.
For instance, I need to spend less time on social media. To a degree, it is part of my job to both create content for and monitor social channels. But I suspect you can sympathize with how easy it is to get sucked down the rabbit hole of doom-scrolling.
I want 2023 to be a year of spending more time with credible information sources and fact-checking sites, and turning down the noise of social channels, particularly ones increasingly dominated by bots and trolls.
I also need to carve out a little more “me” time this year. Managing a 24/7 radio station carries a certain amount of inability to completely disengage from work, but to whatever degree possible I want to devote more time this year to personal interests. I have long admired Shelley’s ability to read for pleasure. I need to take lessons from her. I also want to engage more with the arts — music (my first arts love), theater and others — creative work that feeds my soul as well as my mind. And I want more date nights with Shelley. ‘nuff said…
My schedule has often made it difficult to get away for vacation time, and as a result I have accumulated the maximum amount the university allows. I need to find more creative ways to take advantage of that time, as I am doing by staying home this coming week before classes begin for the spring.
Finally, I want to devote more energy to doing what I can to improve my community.
I want to talk less and listen more this year. That’s an uphill challenge for a radio guy, but I need to try. My long-time leadership mentor, Ron Joekel, always said that nothing of any importance happens until two people sit down and talk. It’s one of the reasons I have tried to schedule one-on-one conversations with each of my students every semester. Those can be a large investment of time, and I’ve not always been successful in building them into my class schedules, but when I do, I am always happy with the results.
Maybe I’m a foolish optimist, but I would like to think that more of those one-on-one talk sessions might help us bridge some of the gulfs between thoughtful Americans of differing viewpoints. I’m willing to try, as my “Eight Angles” writing colleague Dan Parsons has done with his “Pints & Politics” podcasts available at https://danparsonspr.com/pints-politics/.
On Friday, Judy Woodruff ended her run as an anchor with the “PBS NewsHour” though she will continue as a correspondent for the program. Her first project will be a two-year deep-dive investigation into the origins of the widening gulf between Americans on opposite sides of the political aisle. This is a topic in which I am deeply invested. We have to do better, and I think we can.
Language plays a role in this divide. My students are used to hearing me say “words matter.” My first post in this writing series detailed my own experiences as a fourth grader with a teacher whose off-hand remark about my art project for my mother cut me to the quick. The result of her comment was unintentional, but that is often not the case in our current state of rhetoric. I am bothered by words or phrases which are now intentionally taken out of context for personal or political gain. An example would be the seemingly ubiquitous “cancel” culture. I find it ironic when certain public figures complain about having been cancelled when I continue to see them complain openly about their supposed cancellation on a daily basis. I encourage my students to strive for accurate word use and I urge the reclamation of the true meanings of words and phrases which are currently being twisted with specific intent — often to further divide groups of citizens for political leverage.
I mentioned cutting back on certain social channels. Another reason for doing that is the misguided sense that clicking the thumbs-up icon somehow accomplishes anything. It’s a false sense of having made a difference. We have a friend who traveled to Poland a couple of times in 2022 to use his substantial culinary skills to make food as part of the World Central Kitchen’s “Chefs For Ukraine” project. He could have just clicked “thumbs up” on their website. But he didn’t. It would have been easier and less expensive for him. But that’s not the route he took. I admire that. I’m not sure overseas travel is in my immediate future, but I long to find more ways to make a real difference here in Lincoln. There’s stuff to do right here, as my friend and the creator of this writing collective, Randy Bretz, demonstrates on a daily basis.
Whew. I know. That’s a long list. I’m unlikely to complete any of these tasks. But I’m not shooting for completion. I’m shooting for incremental gains. Anything is better than nothing.
I encourage you, gentle reader, to create your own list of non-binding resolutions for 2023 whether or not you choose to make them public. But you might want to share your goals with somebody you respect. A 2019 study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that folks who shared personal goals with somebody whose opinions they respected were more likely to achieve those goals.
In any case, I will report back in a year and update you on my successes and on where I need to make more progress.
I wish you and yours a happy new year and a happy new you. Cheers!
