I’ve been thinking about the difference between New Year’s resolutions and living with intention, the difference between setting goals and being present, and the difference between staring at the horizon and noticing what’s right in front of me.
This year, the night after Christmas, I had an epiphany about my New Year’s resolutions. Seemingly all at once, I crafted a package of five that I can accomplish consistently in 2026 (the operative term is ‘consistently’):
- implement a new fall-asleep routine
- resume regular workouts at the local Tennis and Fitness Center
- eat more green salad each week
- get a massage at least once a month
- get help doing some important personal work, i.e. resume therapy
For most of the past 30 years or so, my wife and I have had a New Year’s tradition with some close friends. Before we all share our new resolutions, we review the ones from the previous year, which she’d written down. And I realize now that I’d never really thought much about those resolutions between the past and present New Year. In other words, I didn’t really accomplish much of them. Thirty years. I guess it’s been a “nice” tradition?
I’m downright enthusiastic about this year’s resolutions. This “list of 5” feels important and doable and even fun! I’m looking forward to seeing how I do. Wait! No! Not how I do, rather how I am as I do them.
I’m not even sure where they all came from. I’ve been thinking about resolutions on and off for a few weeks, and then boom! as I was falling asleep they all came together, and I had to get out of bed and go write them down.
Committing to this list of 5 feels like I’m doing something good for myself, and part of that is because I’m aware that the clock is ticking. Not the clock bringing me closer to death (that clock is always ticking), rather the clock that is about the opportunities afforded by my aging.
Conscious aging is about recognizing the possibility of opportunities afforded by our aging. Getting older is about change; change is about both loss and opportunity. Having some of this awareness may account for my changed attitude about New Year’s resolutions this year. Coming up with this list of 5 is helping me to embrace my aging.
It is also allowing me to offer the respect due my own growing old. Yes, respect is due. Not minimalizing. Not trivializing. Not infantilizing.
Conscious aging is about respecting the older people we see in family or at work or in the supermarket line or driving in front of us. It’s about respecting the older people taking care of others and doing something good for themselves. It’s about respecting ourselves.
Let’s all resolve to respect our own living and dying, and to age with agency.
