Maybe it’s because I am a New Year’s Eve baby that resolutions are especially appealing to me. The problem with New Year’s resolutions that are easily begun on January 1st is the heaviness they acquire by January 2nd and the impossible burden they seem to become by January 3rd.

Mark Twain said it well, in a January 1863 letter to the Virginia Territorial Enterprise: “Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in, community. New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, 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.”

Here are my resolutions for 2014. They never grow stale, even those that are renewed year after year. If the New Year represents anything, it represents hope.

• I resolve to think more carefully about what I eat and drink… before I eat or drink it.
• I resolve to put at least 30 minutes of exercise onto my daily schedule… like all the other things I put on my schedule, whether I do them or not.
• I resolve to not let reading material pile up all over my kitchen table. Even the cat is complaining there’s no place left for her to sit.
• I will turn off my computer at 9 p.m. every night so my mind can wind down at a reasonable time for sleep. If I set my clocks back to Pacific Coast time, that will buy me a couple of hours.
• I will write at least one short story every month. Blog posts don’t count.
• I will learn more about evolving social media. It’s like people: I don’t have to love them to embrace and accept them.
• I resolve to find more great books and authors to bring to Book●ed.

I figure seven resolutions are enough to make or break. I included at least one or two I know I will keep. At the end of 2014, I’ll let you know how I did with the others.

What are your New Year’s resolutions? When it comes to reading and writing, T.S. Eliot captured the spirit of moving forward, year to year. He wrote,
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

Happy New Year!