A very Happy New Year to you!!!

So after a truly delightful and busy holiday season, I’ve been doing my usual meditating (as opposed to actually doing anything) on the subject of New Year’s Resolutions. I reviewed my 2025 successes and failures, quizzed friends, and did some online research –

In the end though, the greatest inspiration has come from a pretty unlikely source!

I’ve gone on record about not really embracing resolutions. I mean, I’ve tried ‘em. Last year, I was thrilled to succeed in losing ten pounds! It’s just I’ve found almost all those pounds again since…

And I’ve tried to be a better housekeeper. But with technology’s advancing so fast, it still puts me off that a person needs to dust the living room more than, like, once every few months. I know they’re working on it, but seeing that Russian humanoid robot that looked more like a drunken sailor than a mechanical maid makes me think it’s gonna be a while…

The A.I. on my phone performed a bit better, instantly spewing back advice in the form of the acronym “SMART”. That’s a resolution which is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. I also found a Forbes article that suggested creating a grid for the week (168 hours) and mapping out time according to what I want to accomplish. I took a run at combining these approaches and created a wonderfully ambitious schedule that was all kinds of Specific and Relevant, la, la, la –

Then I remembered some of those hours are meant to be for sleeping.

Deep down (as well as annoyingly close to the surface at times), I suspect I hesitate to make resolutions because not making them ensures that I won’t fail to achieve them. But the Forbes article also encouraged readers to focus more on progress than perfection – not to throw in the avowal, but to keep on trying. 

All sensible advice – so I’ve pressed on.

Late in the resolving game, I caught a CNN interview with author and “happiness expert” Gretchen Rubin. She suggested making the process less angsty by picking a nice overall theme which would inspire specific actions (I believe her 2026 theme is “neighbor”), and then to stay on track by choosing a “whimsical” visual reminder for that theme. 

Which is sort of where I was already headed. Except my theme is represented not by a word or image –

But by a sound.

I’ve been living in the same apartment for nearly 20 years now. Fellow apartment dwellers out there will understand how in this kind of close living, we hear all kinds of sounds that aren’t the product of our own actions. Some are general to the building, like long after the winter storm we just had in LA, I was reintroduced to the metronome-y sound of post-rain water drops that plummet down a pipe from the roof and hit the pavement below my bedroom window. One by one by one:

Tck. Tck. Tck. Tck.

Others are more specific, like the sound of my upstairs neighbor’s opening and closing his sliding glass doors (which he does with authority) – something like:

Gghhzzzzrrrrrrrr – krooooosh!!!

And as my unit sits above our parking area, I’ve become familiar with everything from neighbors’ work schedules to the particular chime one guy’s car makes as he backs into his assigned space. That’s your basic:

Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong.

When I’m occasionally pulled out of a sound sleep late at night by these chimes, I try to take comfort in the fact that at least he’s takings steps not to run over me.

But the unbidden sound that’s been reaching me lately comes from our newest neighbors who have two little girls:

Doop doop doop doop doop doop doop!

That’s an effort to reproduce the rapid-fire rhythm of the younger one’s steps as she runs around the building. I became certain what the new sound was on Halloween when she raced down the hall to show me her Frozen costume, gleefully declaring “I Elsa!” (With the “l” in “Elsa” sweetly sounding more like a “w”.) In a building where the rest of us grown-up types seem content to plod to the car and the laundry room, etc., this sound says to me there’s a wee cutie out there who’s got places to go and people to see – and she’s not about to waste any time!

Those frenetic footfalls brought back to mind some of my own youthful priorities – which the hilarious Michael McIntyre captures perfectly in one of his bits. He describes how his kids rush and fuss over being the one to press the floor button in elevators or to summon the green “go” person at crosswalks – and how absolutely crazy it makes him!

And I laugh partly because I absolutely did those things! I also used to get yelled at through a lifeguard’s megaphone to walk and not run across our community pool deck, since I must have wanted to execute my cannonball just those few seconds sooner. I’d scramble to get into the schoolyard queue and take part in some of the most epic games of four-square that I’m sure have ever been! And yes – on family summer driving trips, I tumbled out of the car and raced my big brothers to every display about an area’s history that had buttons on it to be pressed!

Those childhood goals may not have been lofty, but they were SMART in their way – ones to which I fully committed, did my best to achieve, and that sometimes even taught me things I remember to this day. (Just ask me about Chief Joseph and Montana’s Big Hole National Battlefield – because that day, I got to the display first!) 

That wind sprint-y sound has me thinking too about where in my older lady life I might apply that kind of exuberance and dedication. I mean, there are big ticket items ahead, like some of my resolutions will be in order to save for another trip abroad – that’s plenty exciting! But maybe I can find excitement in the everyday too, like “Elsa” clearly does. A few days ago, I was looking out the window at that rare LA storm and decided to have my morning coffee outside on the porch. Yeah, it was cold. And wet. But it was also an exhilarating thing to be out in!

So as I work to narrow my goals for the new year into SMART ones, some will be achievable and some I’m sure will fall into the “try and try again” category. Either way, I want to remember my chosen theme of pursuing them with the same energy as my smart little neighbor has – to be so excited for what the day brings that I have to run out there to meet it:

Doop doop doop doop doop doop doop!

Well, “run” metaphorically, anyway. And no, I don’t plan to start elbowing people aside in elevators to push “12” – but I’ll stick with the pleasure I always take in pressing the button on my screen that says “Publish”!

Wishing all a Happy and Healthy 2026 – and for those doing the resolution thing, the very best of success!