Re-Resolution

Bonus New Year Edition! Make the familiar strange, appreciate what you used to want, keep up the good work, and more.

I was going to make this a Supporter-only post but I decided to send to everyone. Still planning a regular issue for next week, consider this one a bonus!

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Photo by Cristian Escobar on Unsplash.

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I’m sure it’s the case that, as skeptics convincingly argue, the New Year’s Resolution is a silly ritual and an ineffective means of changing your life or behavior.

But I don’t care what they think! Because I have gradually come to realize that there’s a variety of resolution I find not just entertaining, but inspiring. Thus I’ve been collecting and sharing them for several years now.

And since so many of you signed up for the newsletter in 2025, and the best resolutions are timeless, today I’m closing out the year by giving you a roundup from past TAoN issues. I guarantee there is something here for everyone.

First: a set of suggested timeless resolutions that I stole from Jason Zweig.

• “Listening to what someone else is saying without hearing what you already think is one of the hardest challenges for the human mind. When you listen, listen as if your life depends on it. Otherwise, you’ll just hear your own words coming out of someone else’s mouth.”

• “Say ‘I don’t know’ at least 10 times a day. That will disqualify you for a career in politics but make you a better person.”

• “Introduce yourself to all the people at your job whom you see every day but haven’t met yet. …”

• “Most of what passes for modesty in this world is just posturing meant to elicit praise. There is no such thing as humility; there is only realism about how much of your life you owe to luck. Always keep that foremost in your mind, and people will think you are humble.”

• “Don’t laugh at things you don’t understand. Take the time and trouble to understand them first. Most likely, you will find that once you understand them, they either become even funnier than you thought in the first place, or not funny in the least.”

• “Stop walking with your phone in your hand all the time. Look up and see how strange and beautiful the world is.”

• “Never try to get other people to change their minds without first trying to understand why they think the way they do. Never do that without being open to the possibility that the mind that might need to change the most could be your own.”

• “When you’re having a bad day, call the closest friend you haven’t talked with in the longest time.”

• And my favorite:“Work harder at making the familiar strange. Walk or drive a different route than your daily routine; work away from your desk; read something flamboyantly irrelevant; call someone you don’t need to call; look up at the sky instead of the concrete. When you turn back to your routine, it will feel freshened.”

Next: Some ideas swiped from Rob LaZebnik, a writer and co-executive producer of The Simpsons, who wrote in The Wall Street Journal (gift link) about turning 60 and doing “60 things I’d never done before,” several of which mapped well onto both resolutions and TAoN prompts:

• He went to a megachurch, and to a gay bar (Go Somewhere You’ve Never Been);

• took a “sound bath” (Indulge Your Senses);

• made an airplane announcement, and did a ride-along with police (Get Permission To Do Something Normally Off-Limits);

• and he made a shirt, albeit poorly (Get Out of Your Creative Comfort Zone).

Also: Over the past couple of years several TAoN friends and Supporters have offered their own spins on resolution ideas:

• Sarah Tobias described a past “365 day phenology project” centered on her yard and neighborhood: tracking weather, animal visits, and the like, and drawing and writing poetry in response. “I’m thinking about a slight change for this year,” she continued. “I’m calling it Nature Curious and looking for just one thing in nature to be curious about each day. I’m setting a limit of ten minutes for my daily curiosity.” This is one I need to do.

• Liz Callaway wrote: “The best New Year’s resolution I’ve ever made (and kept!) was to read a children’s book before bed every night. It didn’t feel like a chore, and it brought me so much happiness to reread childhood favorites and discover books I’d never gotten around to reading.” Not having read a children’s book since, you know, childhood, I find this strangely intriguing! More here.

• Friend of TAoN Anne Kadet, in a zig-when-everyone-else-zags variation, said: “I once started the year committing to not TRYING to improve for an entire twelve months. But that was just another resolution that I broke.”

• Emerson wrote: “My friend Jason Lange has a ritual called ‘the unachievable goal,’” in which you make a willfully unrealistic resolution, and this “helps you carry yourself like the sort of person who could, say, become a filthy rich performance artist.”

• And TAoN friend shanna trenholm suggested using the new year as an opportunity to keep up the good work: “A good resolution is to continue doing something I’m already doing that has been beneficial for my well-being,” she wrote. “Doesn’t need to be new resolution, it can be a re-commitment to an activity or way of being that is working.” Good advice!

There are even more ideas in a Supporter-only thread from a while back. Here are a few more favorites — I’m boiling them down, so for full context & credit check the chat thread itself:

• “Last year I made a resolution to always acknowledge people I know when I saw them out in the world. This led to some great (and sometimes uncomfortable) conversations but always left me feeling good 😊”

• “To be as offline as possible.”

• “My resolution is a daily one. To keep moving forward, to keep learning, growing, experimenting, experiencing, and noticing.”

• “To notice the details of nature, and instead of taking a photo of something beautiful and then quickly abandoning it thinking that was enough, savor it before and after at least 15 seconds longer than I might have.”

• “To acknowledge more often that I am doing my best.”

Amen to that one. And to this comment, which I get:

• “After getting sober, I realized that a lot of my anxiety to have things different greatly diminished. I’m becoming happier to embrace whatever comes along with less apprehension. So I have no resolution to offer beyond that. It works for me.”

And to close, a new one, borrowed from this short Sam Harris audio piece that has nothing to do with the New Year per se, but fits:

• “Imagine what it would be like to be truly satisfied with what you have — even just for an hour,“ he suggests. “And try to spend the next hour like that. Remember what it was like to want all that you now have.”

Happy 2026 everyone!!

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OKAY THAT’S IT!

• As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.

• —> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.

And thanks for reading …
rw

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All this by Rob Walker PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032.

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