Readers Share Their 2023 Resolutions
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
This week I asked you all to send in your New Year’s resolutions for 2023, and you answered the call: We had hundreds of responses. But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
- The IRS really, really should have audited Donald Trump.
- Harry, Meghan, and the men who hate them
- My mother just died of COVID in Wuhan.
Clean Slates
New Year’s resolutions might seem silly or pointless. And yet we make them, I suppose, because at the stroke of midnight, we feel like we’ve been presented with a box of 365 shiny new days. The new year is as close to a clean slate as human beings can get without a governor’s signature on a pardon. We know the feeling will pass, maybe even by morning (and certainly the first time we actually go back to the gym), but we take a shot at renewal anyway, before the optimism wears off.
This year, I decided to dodge writing about my own resolutions by asking you to share yours. A correspondent named Jean suggests that I am encouraging a bad habit: “New Year’s resolutions are quaint edicts that betray our capacity for growth by distracting us from taking on real endeavors that fulfill life goals.” Maybe, but you know what, Jean? Let’s do it anyway. Below are some of the answers you sent: funny, touching, cynical, sensible, and most of all—hopeful. (Some of these responses were edited for length and clarity.)
Most of you seemed determined to shake off the gloom of the past few years. “I want to laugh more,” Norene wrote, “the laughter that makes you cry and makes your sides ache.” Susan shared that her “intention for 2023 is to replace mean thoughts with kind and patient ones.” Karin resolved to take “everything (especially politics) and everyone (especially Trump) less seriously and try to be the best person I can.” Caroline went a bit further: “I resolve not to take anything personally or overthink or politicize any comments … just play dumb and not engage, like a robot, like I’m Siri.” I think there’s something between silence and rage, Caroline, but I understand the desire to keep our daily interactions calm and civil. Perhaps Ananya said it most succinctly: “I want to be better at understanding others.”
(In a similar vein, my old friend and longtime Naval War College colleague Pete Dombrowski sent me a note saying his resolution was a perennial one for him: “talk less, listen more,” an aspiration I share. But Pete, like me, grew up a loud, working-class Massachusetts guy, and we both admit that resolution isn’t going anywhere for either of us.)
As a man of a certain age, I keenly felt Randall’s commitment to “stop complaining and focus on being a better person,” because of his awareness of the inevitable emptying of the hourglass. “I’m headed for age 70 in a few months,” he wrote, “and am becoming a curmudgeon. It’s not how I want to live the last chapters of my life.” I’d say there’s nothing wrong with being a curmudgeon—it’s my guilty pleasure—but to live with gratitude and an acceptance of our mortality is a fine realization not only on New Year’s Day, but every day.
Several resolutions shared a commitment to return to the world and contact other humans. Jeremy spoke for many of you when he said, “Less screen time, more real-world time.” Sarah resolved to “spend more early evenings outdoors, enjoying twilight.” Ann-Marie intends to “follow the example of a good friend and, from time to time, send handwritten snail-mailed notes/letters to family and friends.” I think that’s a lovely practice, and I wish I did it more often myself. Jackie had a delightful idea: “I want to invite our teenagers’ friends over for dinner as often as I can, because it’s fun and nothing breeds optimism like listening to kids planning their future.” I have a teenage daughter and I have taught young people for most of my life, and that one (as the kids would say) hit me right in the feels.
Several of you wrote to say that you are facing severe personal challenges, including heart trouble, cancer, lung disease, and alcohol dependency. You all resolved to fight through them as best as you can in 2023. And so to Pamela, Stan, Francie, Yvonne, and many others, I send my best wishes and my hope that we will gather again to share your resolutions for 2024.
Some of you had more idiosyncratic resolutions. “I intend to eliminate very and really from my vocabulary,” Virginia wrote. I really agree and very much hope … Ugh. Sorry. And although I asked you to keep your messages to a sentence or two, I have to give Jochen, writing from Germany, a little space for his next project:
I would like to continue and increasingly support biodiversity in urban areas. For this purpose, I developed and built a water-saving mini garden, to be able to support biodiversity even for small spaces, like balconies or street corners. According to my observation, thanks to drip irrigation, you now need 50% less water and the insects (and humans) love it when it blooms.
That seems a lot more complicated than my big idea of going back down one pants size, but a plan’s a plan.
Ed’s resolution was to have “someone repair the wristwatch my dad bought me for my high-school graduation in 1985, so I can wear it again.” I was touched by this, because my father used to wear an Omega that he was given by his company back in 1966 for 25 years of service, and when he died in 2012, I found it in his jewelry box and I wanted to wear it to keep a piece of him near me. I was crushed when our local watchmaker told me that the pieces it needed didn’t even exist anymore. I hope Ed gets to wear his dad’s watch.
Speaking of fathers, Charles sent me a longish list that included celebrating his father’s 90th birthday. I especially liked his aspiration to watch Mannix—one of my favorite vintage television shows. I can’t say I share his desire to “drive with the top down in a snowstorm,” but his last box-check was to “revel in at least one part of each day,” and I have to admit that zipping down I-95 in a Mustang during a blizzard might count.
Jo, meanwhile, is determined to break a bad habit. “I really must make a concerted effort to stop eating in bed, something my husband flatly forbade as grotesque when he was alive and if there is an afterlife there’s no doubt that he looks on in horror every time I do it.” I think eating in bed is kind of icky, too, but Jo also has other plans, and I wish her success in returning to school in middle age this year to study photojournalism. Cathy, a physician, has more humble ambitions: “I want to learn to type on my phone with BOTH my thumbs. (I am 75).” Go for it, Doc; I still can’t do it.
Some of you are charging right at 2023 with angry-rhino determination. Joseph is going to “finish Volume 2 of the five-volume world history I’m writing.” (Five?) Edward is going to “spend the year mastering comedy to the best of my ability” and go out on the road doing stand-up. The aspiring screenwriter David wrote that his goal for 2023 is to “take the steps to land a paid screenwriting gig even if it’s for a cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie starring Carrie Underwood.” Hey—there’s nothing wrong with Hallmark movies (or Carrie Underwood). My friend Jay Black has written a few of them, and they’re as American as a Dunkin’ Donuts hot chocolate.
Also, my ego demands that I support Michele, whose resolution is “to be an accomplished writer and author like Tom Nichols,” and I must also applaud Judy (writing from Budapest), who said she will “finally subscribe to The Atlantic so I can support serious journalism and read more outstanding writing by you and a long list of other exceptional writers.” Now that’s positive thinking, and I can only encourage more of it. But it was our correspondent Bekke who took top honors for facing 2023 with confidence: “I will gain another 5 lbs (seriously). Otherwise, I’m pretty perfect.” Darn right, Bekke.
Thank you all for writing—and for reading this past year. This is my last Daily for 2022, and I wish you all a peaceful and happy 2023. I’ll see you next week.
Related:
- New Year’s resolutions that will actually lead to happiness (2020)
- The surprisingly profound power of thank-you notes
Today’s News
- House Democrats released six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax documents after years of speculation over the state of his finances.
- Western New York may face minor flooding in the coming days due to rain and snowmelt from this week’s deadly winter storm.
- Preparations are under way in Santos, Brazil, for a 24-hour public mourning of the Brazilian soccer star Pelé, who died yesterday at age 82.
Dispatches
- Books Briefing: Elise Hannum asks why travel inspires so much writing.
- The Third Rail: There’s no way to repair marriage in America without repairing men, writes David French.
- Unsettled Territory: Imani Perry reflects on a year of weekly newsletters, and the records we leave behind.
Explore all of our newsletters here.
Evening Read
How a Perfectly Normal New York Suburb Elected a Con Man
By Steve Israel
How did George Santos, a Republican newly elected to New York’s Third Congressional District, on Long Island, get away with running for office with an almost completely fictitious résumé? The answer is a combination of Democratic complacency, Republican extremism, and media decline in a House district that I know intimately.
On Election Night, Republicans swept all four of Long Island’s House seats. Democrats didn’t realize the severity of the loss, however, until The New York Times revealed that Santos had lied about his education, work experience, philanthropic pursuits, and finances, among other things. This was no familiar case of a politician embellishing around the edges: Santos appeared to have made himself up. On Monday, he admitted that he’d engaged in serial falsehoods, but said that he intended to join the House majority anyway.
More From The Atlantic
- 74 things that blew our minds in 2022
- Photos of the Week: Confetti test, food battle, glowing waterfall
Culture Break
Read. Milk Fed, the second novel by Melissa Broder—or choose another of these eight books that will comfort you in lonely times.
Watch. Catch up on the best TV shows of the year, according to our critics.
Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here.
Kelli María Korducki contributed to this newsletter.