I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about New Year’s goals (I don’t like the word resolutions). Each year, usually in some way we all make a set of goals for the 365 days ahead. We want to lose weight and get in shape. We vow to travel more. We plan to save money. We want to learn something new. The beginning of a new calendar year fills us all with hope for the unknown and gives us the impetus we need to begin again on the path toward betterment.
Because let’s be honest, we make these goals because we want to be better. We want to hit the gym because we want a better, healthier body. We desire to save money so we live less pay check to pay check and can plan for our future. We want to learn something new so we can become a better more rounded individual. Most, if not all, New Year’s resolutions are about becoming a better person.
But lately, I’ve been thinking that these classic resolutions are also pretty selfishly motivated. I want to lose weight and get in shape to look better during the summer season. I want to save money so I can have more money later in life to spend as I want. I want to travel so that I can have new experiences in my repertoire. And maybe, just maybe, this is way classic resolutions fail. We’re too focused on me, me, me, that we actually fail to become a better me.
So this year, I’m making New Year’s goals that will help me become a better person, but that aren’t so focused on me.
5 New Year’s Resolutions to Become a Better Person
ONE: Give your time to the less fortunate. No, not your money. Because while that is good and important too, it’s the time spent with others that changes us. It’s easy to write a check or fill in our credit card information. And maybe we even feel the financial pinch a little. But true personal growth doesn’t come by parting with $100. We grow when we see and understand the needs of others, being able to see how truly blessed we are with what we have. One summer Spring Break I traveled to the poorest zip code in Texas to help build homes for a week. It was hard labor but it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I got to help build a home for a family of 4 who lost it when a Christmas burglar came in to rob the house of Santa’s gifts and then burned the entire place down, while they slept inside, because he lost his wallet somewhere inside while unloading the family of their treasures. The children were beyond excited to have a house again. That experience made me a better person. This year I’m toying with volunteering at a soup kitchen.
TWO: Stay current on international news. As a journalist, one of my biggest pet peeves is the lack of knowledge we Americans often have about what’s going on beyond our borders. Now, as a teacher, I see this time and time again when a student will make a comment about some world event that they know really nothing about. The Syrian refugees are a perfect example. In a class discussion, one of my students, in all good will, suggested the Syrians just build a little place in their own country where they can live together. That way no one has to harbor them and they don’t have to leave their country. It was a sincere suggestion, but one that illustrated how little they all knew about the plight of the Syrians who are fleeing their own homeland. The more we read about the things going on around the world, the broader our world view becomes, the more we are able to empathize with those in need, the more we are able to see the good things we have here. I’m hoping to make reading international news a part of my daily morning routine, even if just for a few minutes.
THREE: Make a new friend or truly reconnect with old ones. I often think, the older we get the harder it is to make friends. But at the same time we all crave friendship. We are want that person-to-person contact. But friendship, especially in the modern world is difficult. It means putting down the phone and stepping away from the computer screen. It means making ourselves vulnerable in a way that online relationships don’t. It means ‘wasting’ time with another person, time in which we could easily be doing a million other things. But friendship helps us be a better version of ourselves. It makes us caring, giving, magnanimous. It gives us the chance to be real and to be fully human. While I’ve been back in Chicago for more than a year now, I’m finally going to take the time to reconnect with old friends and classmates.
FOUR: Step away from technology. I love, love, okay, really love technology in all its various forms. I love exploring the newest apps and gadgets. I hate that my iPhone has the tiniest crack on the screen. But, let’s be honest, all this technology also makes us a disconnected people. We are connected to everything and yet we are not really connected, deeply, to anyone. Like that viral video that was so popular a couple years ago suggested; put down the phone and look up. In any given day we pass a hundred or more people on the streets, at work, in the grocery store. A hundred people who have lives; who have trials and heartaches, joys and triumphs. But we don’t notice these things because we are so often glued to our phones. Planned moments of technology-free interactions are what I am striving for this year.
FIVE: You’re here, be present. Over the summer my cousins and siblings spent a little time together at a lake in Georgia. There was no agenda, no plan, and it was perfection. One night, over a couple beers, we started talking about what it was that made us all so close to our siblings. The resounding message, that was repeated in a variety of ways over and over, was the importance of being fully present when together. This mantra has been playing in my head over and over since August. We show our love and affection for another, and feel it too, when we are fully and completely present with someone during the time we are together. A friend or family member knows when we are distracted, when we are listening but not really paying attention. When our mind is on something completely different than the person in front of us. I’m going to work on being fully present this year - closing the computer when a student walks in to talk, putting my phone into airplane mode when having dinner with a friend, tuning out the to-do list when having family time, not counting the minutes that are being ‘wasted’ in the presence of another.
What are your goals for the year? Do you have other suggestions for how to become a better person in 2016?
