“New Year’s is a harmless annual institution,” wrote Mark Twain, “of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.”
Let me use this great occasion to wish you a happy New Year and share some humbug resolutions for 2022. Feel free to borrow as you wish and, like me, break at your own pace.
I resolve to…
Keep in mind the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote: “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.”
Own my day.
Try to live up to the wisdom of these lines by Rudyard Kipling: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two imposters just the same.”
Try also to treat Fret and Anxiety like the imposters they are.
Conserve, conserve, conserve water and energy.
Pass up the nearest open parking spot in order to leave it for someone, perhaps an elderly person, who might find it difficult to walk very far.
Give compliments 10 times more frequently than unsolicited advice. Make that 100 times more frequently.
Try to, as Eleanor Roosevelt advised, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Or, at least, challenges me.
Try to be as excited about learning new things as my 3-year-old granddaughter Maya always is.
As my lodestar Coach John Wooden preached and practiced, “Make friendship a fine art.”
Heed Henry David Thoreau’s wisdom, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it,” and try not to exchange foolishly.
Unplug, unplug, unplug.
Read deeply from good books – and shallowly from fun books, too.
Keep in mind this wisdom from my Grandpa Ansel: “The only way to travel life’s road is to cross one bridge at a time.”
When travelling, the ongoing pandemic willing, follow my friend Ken’s sage advice: “Be sure to turn down a hidden alleyway, or go inside a quiet doorway off the beaten path, because that’s where you’ll find some of the most memorable experiences.”
Find memorable experiences in my everyday life.
Buy two of anything a kid under age 10 is selling.
Check my email inbox less frequently and write more snail-mail letters.
Shop at local small businesses first, local chains second, and buy online as a last resort.
Be quicker to forgive and slower to criticize – including of myself.
Keep a coffee-chain gift card in my wallet for when I come across someone down-on-their-luck.
Stop to smell the roses – and daydream at the clouds, savor pastel sunsets, marvel at starry night skies, and appreciate all of nature’s art.
Similarly, heed John Muir’s call to “Keep close to nature’s heart and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
Sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen.
Pick up litter – and not just on Beach Clean Up Days.
Play hooky more often and go to the beach to wash my spirit clean with salt water.
Give flowers out of the blue and not just to mark special occasions.
Keep in mind the words of Wayne Bryan: “If you don’t make an effort to help others less fortunate than you, then you’re just wasting your time on Earth.”
Lastly, again as Coach Wooden advised, I resolve in 2022 to try to “Make each day a masterpiece.”
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com