New Year’s Resolutions have a low approval rating – and so they should. But first, let’s define ‘resolutions’ as we use the word. How do we qualify or even quantify its use? If the concept demands determination, self-discipline and control, well, it’s time to reconsider. If, on the other hand, as we transition from one year to the next, do we see this as a time to consider the past twelve months, reframe troubles as lessons learned or even growth, and reorganize our intentions for 2026? We know only too well that a great deal is beyond our control. However, conventional wisdom suggests that our reaction to our experience is what is significant. If we gain strength through solving problems or simply weathering storms, we, simply, gain strength! If flexing a physical muscle against resistance makes our bodies stronger, so too, flexing our ability to apply personal wisdom and individual ethics to the flood of obstacles that meet us daily must certainly enhance inner strength. Aligning ourselves with our own set of morals and standards and acting in accordance with them, is a continuing challenge but an unending opportunity to build our own fitness in every sense of the word.
Years ago I had the privilege of writing and editing a weekly Sunday full page for the Rutland Herald & Times Argus titled ACTIVE VERMONT. (There is a link below to one of my articles that is as relevant today as it was in 2013.) As I researched back through some of my stories, I came across these paragraphs from 12-30-2012:
“At this time of year when the ubiquitous New Year’s Resolution list beckons, I am doing something a little different. I am taking a page from the book of the Roman god Janus after whom January is named.
Janus is the god of beginnings and endings, of transitions and of time itself. The two-faced head of Janus often crowns doors and gates with one face looking back and the other looking forward. Is this not what we are doing at this time of year: looking back over the year that has just passed and looking forward to the year ahead?
An interesting aspect of the Janus head that I recently observed is that each face is the same. One is not looking forward with furrowed brow or looking back frantically as if to say ‘where has the time gone?’ Both faces consider what has gone before and what lies ahead with equivalent composure.”
Here we are more than a decade later preparing for another transition into a new year, 2026. And yet, many of us celebrate a variety of transitions throughout a 12-month cycle. Often we see a birthday, anniversary, full moon, solstice or equinox, even a sunrise or a sunset as a time to segue into something, if not new, at the very least deliberately different.
Each time I wring my hands and think our country or the world has never seen such hard times as we are experiencing, I need only to turn my head to look back – way back – into the history of the world. We are still here. That is not to say we should stick our heads in the sand or that we should fail to show up, but it is to say the tides turn randomly and we should always seek to both participate and to hope.
What about those resolutions? If you need help goal setting (S.M.A.R.T. goals continue to be an excellent way to go about that) there is plenty to be found with the help of your favorite search engine. I recommend that you take a hard look at your goals before setting them, however. Be original. Trash those consistently vulnerable goals such as…I will lose weight, I will get fit, I will make a lot of money. Each of us has within us (sometimes hidden, but there) tools of creativity. Now is the time to find those tools, dust them off, and fashion resolutions with a gentle determination to breathe life into our expectations and create habits that will ultimately define each of us.
Recently I shared with a Yin Yoga class a forgiving analogy with respect to the Water Element that coincides with the season we are now experiencing. This season encourages us to go deep – to take time to think, to value even a few moments of stillness and to recognize the value of darkness. As water flows around obstacles in its way, as water takes the shape of whatever container it fills, as water soaks and nourishes, may we, too, flow with composure around whatever obstacles we encounter.
Finally may you always have a close friend.
Happy 2026.
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” Bruce Lee. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/32579.Bruce_Lee