About Resolutions, More or Less
As I drag myself out of a two-week semi-hibernation (hello! Happy New Year!), I've been thinking, unsurprisingly, about resolutions. I used to be a New Year's resolutions person; as someone who lives to make lists, I appreciated the concept. At least in theory. In practice, I have a memory of writing a list of resolutions with my then-boyfriend, with the nagging feeling that my life's success or lack thereof depended upon whether or not I/we achieved them. This was about 15 years ago, so it's difficult to remember what they were. What I do remember is that I/we achieved none of them.
Since then, I've come to see resolutions as yet another yardstick you can use to rap your own knuckles for your failure to measure up. Our personal data is increasingly weaponized against us in the name of mental and physical improvement — I'd just as soon wear a whalebone corset as an Oura ring — making the New Year resolution, in this context, feel like one more brick in the self-optimization industrial complex.
(If you're someone who enjoys making resolutions, more power to you! As my freshman English professor used to say, we all bring our own luggage to a text, and mine is decidedly oversized.)
I do understand the desire to have some kind of ritual to mark the new year, whether it's a voluntary plunge into icy water or some form of existential accounting. At the end of 2023, I finally found one that made sense to me thanks to Julia Rothman, one of my favorite illustrators. She posted to Instagram her More/Less list, a simple chart showing what she wanted more and less of in the year to come. I loved the visual aspect of it, and its degree of chill: no stated goals, no resolutions, just a ledger of emotions, behaviors, people, and activities that it would be nice to accumulate or do without.
When I tried making my own, it was harder than I expected. I found myself staring into space for a long time, thinking not so much of personal failings and achievements as who the hell I am. There is, I learned, a lot of messiness that goes into making a list of this kind; my soundtrack to the endeavor was Talking Heads' bewildered "how did I get here?" on continuous loop.
I posted the eventual list on Instagram and never looked at it again; I did the same thing the following year. When I was making my 2026 list, I looked back at 2025's and realized that not much has changed: I still need to work on avoidant behavior, particularly when checking my inbox, and I still want fewer jerks in my life (who doesn't) and more time spent dancing, volunteering, and practicing French. But I don't feel the same pressure I did with resolutions; this is not an outcome-based undertaking, more a "the journey is destination" kind of thing. Vibes, man.
I think more people should know about the More/Less approach to existential accounting. Rothman apparently does too, since she recently published the More/Less journal, which expands the exercise to topics like relationships, money, boundaries, and communication. But however you choose to mark the arrival of a new year, I hope this one has been treating you kindly. Here's to persisting. It's what we do as we trundle through this thing we call life, to paraphrase another musician who knew about making the most of what we're given.
