I have a sketchy relationship with New Year’s resolutions.
When I was a teen and younger adult, I was devoted to the concept of setting up goals for self-improvement, starting on the first day of the year. Sometimes I would contemplate them in advance, but usually I sat down on Jan. 1 and wrote 10 resolutions in my new favorite notebook or journal that I’d received for Christmas. After a few days or maybe weeks, I wouldn’t look at the list again.
Granted, I have more than a touch of OCD. I love lists. I love organization. But I also have varying amounts of willpower, and I can be easily distracted. My obsession with arranging my T-shirts alphabetically within color groups according to the color spectrum can be trumped by my need to sleep or watch a movie or love on my cats or even clean the bathroom.
I am Dory in my life’s version of “Finding Nemo.”
But I know that 2022 is going to be different than 2021 was. I am once again in a single-person household. I no longer have the focus of caregiving. Like everyone else, I’m facing the seeming randomness of a global pandemic and trying my best not to catch the virus while maintaining equanimity in my mental health.
In recent weeks, as I’ve been thinking about flipping the calendar into a new year and making a fresh start, I’ve been zeroing in on what I can do to make the world a little more positive. I’m done with negativity – aren’t you?
My extended family has recently added two little girls to our ranks. I now have 11 grandnieces and grandnephews under the age of 15. All of their parents share my faith and its messages of love, light and peace, but that doesn’t mean I want them growing up in a secular environment that offers nothing but bleakness.
Most of the secular influences in my life have been based on positive and inspiring ideas. John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address was the first of my lifetime, and I grew up with the quotation: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” The entire speech is mind-blowing and should be revisited often by everyone in this country old enough to comprehend it.
My first job was delivering papers for The Knoxville News-Sentinel (as it was known then, uppercase T and a hyphen) while I was in high school. Every day I would look at the Scripps-Howard lighthouse logo and absorb the motto: “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way.” Those words led me into my career in journalism. I believed in them. (I’m not so sure now.)
At the University of Tennessee, I joined a national sorority (Alpha Chi Omega) whose motto is “Together Let Us Seek the Heights.” As an alumna, the ideals of the sorority have helped form my path and given me an enduring bond with my sisters.
I have been inspired and encouraged by numerous mentors at church, at work and in the community. I’ve also spent a lot of time listening to people whine, complain and choose to follow a narrow and self-serving path. I’d much rather hang out with the former group.
I’m not (totally) naïve, but I do think we would all prefer to live in a pleasant world than a miserable one. We don’t have to be doormats to get along with everyone, but we need to think about what we want and how to get there cooperatively.
I might have said this before, but I believe it starts with empathy. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Do you want to listen to someone complain all the time? Then don’t complain unless you’re speaking with someone who can help resolve the problem. Do you want to be bullied? Do you want to be cut off on the interstate? Do you want to be cheated out of what’s owed to you?
Do you see where this is going?
As for my resolutions, I’m really obsessed with that not-complaining thing, and I want to reduce my carbon footprint. But you don’t need to know my list. You don’t even need to make your own list. Just resolve to make people happy to hang out with you, and I will do the same.
Happy New Year!