A Note on New Year’s Resolutions

I’ve been thinking about what to write in this space for several days now. As 2025 looms, I feel obligated to write something reflective of the year we’ve had, with intentions about the year ahead.

But I don’t want to…?

The hoopla surrounding New Year’s, while understandable, is still a wildly arbitrary ritual. Time continues to march forward at the same, pedantic rate, and it seems strange (absurd?) that the replacement of one calendar for a new one should dictate the establishment of new life goals.

“Goals.”

I suppose that is what I will write about in this weekly missive, since Instagram, Threads, and even my Google newsfeed keep telling me that this is what I should be thinking about this time of year.

What are my resolutions for 2025?

A couple of years ago, I wrote a ​long newsletter and podcast episode ​about my goals for 2023 in conjunction with a wrap up piece on our most recent trip to Italy. Even then, I tried to keep my goals soft and, yes, manageable. I included things like “call Omma everyday” and “walk at least 1 hour 5x a week.”

As Anthony will attest to, I failed rather miserably.

I still believe that successful goal setting is about identifying those things that seem like extremely low lifts, with the idea that low lifts, aggregated over time, can turn into massive, heavy lifts that result in appreciable gains. That light 5 lb dumbbell might seem too easy at first, but towards the tail end of your 3rd set, you’ll want to put it down for good.

But as I headed into the CVS the other day to pick up my medication and a package of printing paper (to which the clerk mused, “Wow, I haven’t seen printing paper in ages–do people still print things out to read?”), I pondered what goals I’d like to set for 2025. And I kept coming back to this one thing my therapist warned me of all the way back in 2015 (wow, that’s ten years ago…!):

“Loving yourself will be the hardest thing you’ll ever do.”

This is the goal I want to set. Not for 2025 or any other arbitrary set of time. This is the goal of a lifetime.

Because, as Rachel put it, it will be the hardest thing I ever do.

But what does “loving yourself” even mean?

As I was walking out of the CVS towards the car, I concluded that “self love” can look like a lot of different things and that it really cannot be a “one size fits all” answer. These days, ​with the unapologetic hijacking of therapy speak​, “self-love” or “self-care” might appear synonymous with indulgence, a lazy and un-nuanced hedonism clothed in the trappings of pop-psychology. “I’m going to eat an entire bucket of ice cream today because self-care,” or “I’m going to skip all my workouts this week because self-care,” or “I’m going to not show up to work today and screw over all my colleagues because self-care.”

I suppose I’m being harsh. There are instances when eating an entire bucket of ice cream constitutes legitimate self-care and there are times when one should skip an entire week’s worth of workouts (like when you’re sick or injured). Sorry, I genuinely cannot think of any instance (subject to life and death stuff) where it’s ok to just not show up to work without at least calling your boss ahead of time. That’s just rude, unprofessional, and childish.

But part of the problem with deconstructing the concept of “self-love” is that our vision is overly short. Eating 23 servings of ice cream might feel like self-love right now, but what about later this evening when your body is crashing from the sugar high? Or tomorrow morning when your stomach feels like you swallowed a beach ball? Or later in the week when you’re downing your 4th bucket of ice cream in 6 days because now that one indulgence has turned into a little habit that you keep describing as “self-love”? I say all these things not as accusation, but as confession–I’ve been there. I’ve done that.

And, to me, regret is a 6-letter word more foul than any f-word.

More to the point, regret is not something that furthers the goal Rachel challenged me with:

“Loving yourself is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.”

New Year’s resolutions must fit into the scheme of our overall goals, our life goals. They are bookended by two things: birth and death. In this most glaring light, I conclude: (a) I want to live a long life, packed with as many toilet-paper thin pages as possible; and (b) I want every single one of those pages to be written in love.

Wherein I write the word “love” as often as possible.

When I was 17 years old, our final project in Senior English was to answer that question: “What is the meaning of life?” My answer then is my answer today:

To love.

It is the one choice we have that makes any real difference in a life, a life that will inevitably come to an abrupt end, an end cloaked in a veil we cannot pierce, know, or even describe.

Thus, when writing the pages that form the book of my life, I want each dash, curve, dot, loop, cross to be written in love, to be etched of love, to be printed for love, such that anyone reading my story will know, deep in their bones, in the soft marrows of their soul, that I was a woman who was loved and loved with not abandon, but intention.

Can we love those around us when we do not love ourselves? Yes, I believe we can. But I also believe love that erupts from those who know themselves in the way that only self-love can teach…? Well, that is the kind of love I aspire to channel.

So, now that I’ve said the word “love” more times than a sonnet, let’s discuss the practical application of this. For me, learning to love myself will look like the following:

• Instituting a stretching and exercise routine that allows me to run long while not injuring my feet (for the millionth time).
• Learning to eat a healthy, nutritious diet without falling into the trap of calorie counting and obsessive dieting.
• Building in time for Korean dramas and card games and fat books amidst a work schedule that threatens to drown me.
• Getting better with my finances so that I’m not always terrified of going broke.
• Remaining committed and disciplined about my friendships, making sure I nurture them the same way I’d nurture my fitness.
• And yes–speaking to my elderly parents more regularly. Maybe not every day (that went bust 4 days into 2023), but at least once a week.

What about you? What are your practical or wildly impractical resolutions for 2025?

THis Week’s Recipe Inspos.

This week, we’re going to take a trip down memory lane, and list out the Top 10 Recipes of 2024–as determined by all of you!

Parting Thoughts

No real parting thoughts, but I’m just going to jot down something I really want to hear:

It’s ok if you didn’t knock it out of the park this year.

It’s ok if all you managed to do was stay afloat.

It’s ok if 2024 was just a so-so year.

And guess what? 2025 isn’t meant to “compensate” for any deficiencies in 2024. 2025 is just another year–a conglomeration of months, days, hours, and minutes. All of which you can aim towards what you decide today.

Wishing you all the best,
-Joanne

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