You don’t have to overexert yourself to keep these goals for the new year.
- Don’t be racist.
- Try not to be an asshole unless it’s definitely warranted, which it probably isn’t, so you should avoid it at most costs.
- Move your body a little every day.
- Stand up, right now. Try to touch your toes. If you can’t, work on it every day until you can. If you’re already there, you don’t have to do anything but bend at the waist. Keep that up.
- If you’re only going up one floor, FFS, take the stairs.
- Call your mom if you can, because you can.
- Wipe front to back.
- Bookmark sensimag.com. Return often. Share.
- Stop humble-bragging. It comes across as insincere when you downplay your accomplishments. Go ahead and outright brag if you have something positive to share so we can celebrate with you.
- Less scrolling. More doing.
- See something you like? Say something. Compliment strangers. Your kind words could make someone’s day.
- Don’t be creepy about it.
- Just don’t be creepy.
- Listen to NPR’s Life Kit podcasts and learn how to life better.
- Try to live by William Makepeace Thackeray’s advice: whatever you are, be a good one.
- Robert Mondavi’s too: Whatever you do, pour yourself into it.
- Whatever you’re up to, own it.
- Read things printed on real paper—physical books, tangible magazines. You’ll retain more info, and you won’t get distracted by the constant barrage of notifications or the gravitational pull of all the world’s information on the world wide web.
- Get a bong cart, or convert your bar cart into a hybrid model.
- Don’t expect this to be the last time you hear about bong carts this year. At least not if you’re reading this magazine (unfortunately not in print yet, but that’s OK—you didn’t resolve to read only things in print.
- Get yourself a(nother) plant. Water it when it needs it, fertilize as the instructions advise, make sure it has the light it needs, help it grow, and breathe in the clean oxygen it’s giving you in return for your TLC.
- Open your personal email. Take a screen-shot that shows the number of unread messages for prosperity sake. “Select all” and mark as read. Sigh contently when that number drops to zero. Try not to let it climb as high in 2021.
- Sign up for unroll.me and unsubscribe to unwanted emails with abandon.
- Clean out your closet but do it with discretion. The standard rule of thumb is that if you haven’t worn something in a year, get rid of it. But if we all did that this year, there’d be no pants with zippers and zero shirts with buttons in our closets. Eventually, we’ll have to dress like the adults we really are again, so don’t toss the heels or the ties just yet.
- Buy yourself some fresh flowers once a month at a minimum. Why? Because they’re pretty, and everybody likes pretty things.
- Save some money and get them from Veldkamp’s on Colfax in Lakewood. Flowers are sold by the stem, and during the daily Flower Happy Hour, all stems are buy one, get one free (weekdays from noon to 6 p.m., open to close Saturday and Sunday).
- Get more sun. Vitamin D is imperative to both mental and physical health, so find a chair and some of that printed reading material you’ve committed to and bask in the warmth while soaking up the goodness. But be smart about it and wear sunscreen so your dermatologist doesn’t yell at you.
- If you’re feeling unwell, stay home.
- If you’re feeling just dandy, sorry: you’ve got to stay home, too, until Fauci tells us otherwise.
- Call your mom again if you can. Because you can.