[Most of this is my old Resolutions repost…BUT read on for why I’ll never have to do this again. And neither will you.]

A new year is about to start and that can only mean one thing. (Or two things if you include trying to figure out WTF “Auld Lang Syne” means…) All over the world, people are about to go to a lot of time and trouble to come up with New Year’s resolutions and then they will actually try to keep those resolutions. This is so wrong in so many ways:

1. Even though you secretly suspect that it’s everyone else who needs to change, you have to list the things to improve about yourself and your life. (If you’re married, you probably don’t have to worry about coming up with things to alter about yourself, because your spouse already has an incredibly detailed list.) So although it makes you and everyone around you miserable, you have to attempt to change yourself and/or your life.
2. Eventually (often helped along by marital references to divorce attorneys, speculation about life insurance purchases, and the suspicious appearance of a long, narrow, deep new flower bed) you admit that you are a total failure and abandon your resolution.
3. Then the next year, even though Albert Einstein didn’t actually say, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” you still do it again. (See #1)

But all that changed last week when my brilliant new friend Sarah suggested I consider the difference between resolutions and intentions. Resolutions, according to the Oxford Dictionary, are “…a firm decision to do or not to do something.” Intentions, on the other hand, are “an aim or plan.”

So basically, resolutions are an all-or-nothing stand. They are 300 Spartans fighting to the death at Thermopylae to hold back a force of 300,000 Persians. They are the Texans in the Alamo, the Light Brigade charging to destruction, me dieting off half my body weight.

Intentions, on the other hand, are all about aiming for the possible and celebrating progress along the way. As the Wizard of Oz pointed out to the Cowardly Lion,

Intentions recognize the difference between cowardice and wisdom.

I’ve been recycling the same resolutions for decades, but just dumbing them down after each year’s failures. But thanks to my new resolution to make intentions instead of resolutions for 2026, I’m revising my list.

1. RESOLUTION: Be a nice person. Be nicer to my husband. Be nicer to my probably soon-to-be-ex-husband. Be nicer to random strangers who don’t smell too bad.
   INTENTION: Be nicer to the new used President. After all, he did once send me a special new year’s greeting.
2. RESOLUTION: Be self-confident. Stand up to my boss. Get a new job. Become a writer. 
   INTENTION: Take my own business trips whenever my husband leaves town so the dog can’t get even with me any more. I think she was still angry with me for telling about her UPS fetish, because she waited until my husband was away to knock me down the stairs. After she removed my feet from contact with the steps, I decided it would be a good time to learn to fly. When it became clear this would not be a particularly successful attempt, I began to make plans for my landing. With the husband out of town, I felt it might not be a good idea to land on my head, as I might need it to find the dog and kill her. So I devised a three-part mid-air plan.
   1. 1. Flail my arms and scream.
      2. Wrap arms around my head and land directly on my…
      3. …if you think of me as the world, with my arms wrapped around the USA, Burkina Faso took a direct hit. Ouagadougou! (Sister Mary Geography was right—she always said that someday we’d need to know how to spell the capital of Burkina F.) For days now I haven’t been able to sit on equatorial Africa, and I have a bruise you wouldn’t believe that goes clear across to Indonesia. As I lay there the dog actually had the gall to come up and lick Florida. If I could have moved, I’d have had Okinawa fire off a few missiles in her direction.
3. RESOLUTION: Get in shape to run a marathon. Get some cute workout clothes and join an extreme-zumba class at the gym. Power walk around the block while moving my arms up and down like that will do a damn thing.
   INTENTION: Power shop the Nordstrom Anniversary sale while waiting for my number to be called for a restaurant table.
4. RESOLUTION: Give up alcohol chocolate coffee candy. INTENTION: Give up Skittles. (Well, the orange ones anyway. Because… orange ones.)
5. RESOLUTION: Get closer to the rest of humanity by donating time and money to work for worthy causes. Donate to charity in time for the tax deduction. Get closer to my family.
   INTENTION: Get even with my family for some of the presents we received in this and past years. I thought that Santa was a few jolly old ho-ho’s short of a load when he brought us the Atomic Pinball with Arcade Sound, but there’s not too much I can do about that. But my own sisters sent my son the Talking Land Shark Slippers when he was five. Each basketball-sized slipper lived up to its promise to “…let out the suspenseful Jaws theme or a spine-tingling scream with every other playful step.” I suggested that we might want to exchange them for something more appropriate for a five year-old, like his own nuclear weapons program. But he wouldn’t dream of relinquishing the right to thrill and entertain me in the predawn hours with a shark attack, “da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, AAAAIIEEEEEEE!!!” [NOTE: If any of you readers are veterans of Christmas gift escalation, I would appreciate your advice for next year. I’m looking for that ideal revenge gift—loud enough to annoy every neighbor in a four-state radius, and with enough small, sharp pieces for them to step on until their children have passed puberty.]
6. RESOLUTION: Oh, yeah, and I resolve to help create harmony, brotherhood, and whirled peas for everyone (except my sisters and the dog).
   INTENTION: Schedule a spa day.

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STOP! ALL ABOVE RESOLUTIONS (except for giving up orange Skittles, of course, because those suckers are just yuck) ARE HEREBY DECLARED OBSOLETE! SCIENCE SAYS SO.

According to actual medical people with actual big medical research grants to use up by the end of the year, that little voice in the back of your head that whimpers, “But it tastes/smells/feels sooooo good. How can it be bad for us?” was right all along.

Researchers at The UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (which turns out to be the disturbingly Borg-sounding acronym: UCI MIND) confirm what you always suspected. Major findings (here) include:

• People who drank moderate amounts of alcohol or coffee lived longer than those who abstained.

• People who were overweight in their 70s lived longer than normal or underweight people did.

Please take just a moment to appreciate these results. (Certainly, based on this research and the fact that I’m in my seventies AND I drink alcohol and coffee like they’re about to go extinct, I’m going to live forever.)

Then please join me in my NEW 2026 resolutions intentions:

1. Pop (several) champagne corks.
2. Add coffee and chocolate chasers.

It’s truly going be a wonderful new year! At least, that’s my intention.