I am terrible at new year's resolutions. I just am. Chalk it up to my general fear of commitment or the way that anxiety brain can make a person forgetful and procrastinate, but I cannot realistically complete anything without an external re-enforcement—like my overall GPA, or being reliable for another person. Even then, I have to double-down to avoid the slightest distractions. Which means remembering to regularly exercise or work on that manuscript? That is on me, and it is very easy to let yourself down, apparently.
Despite how terrible I am at keeping resolutions for the new year, I have decided to make one anyway. This one I intend to keep. For 2020, my new year’s resolution is to be a better human.
There is no official guidebook for completing this goal, of course. Even if there were, I am not so sure how much better we all would be at it. I have decided that my approach will be to take my new year’s resolution one step at a time so as to avoid any purging and binging. For me, it is the little things that matter, and for this reason, I have composited a list of “better” things that I intend to work on this year. So, here are nine things we can both do to feel like a better human, right now.
i. drink water
Take care of yourself first! Truly, the first step to feeling like a better human today requires you to be a good human to yourself. Now pick up that water bottle and remember to take a big gulp. Keep doing that. You need it.
I have tried manual trackers, reminder apps, or eating my water to compensate, and I am still considerably terrible at remembering to drink the appropriate amount of water consistently. Inconsistency is not the end of the world as we know it, for the record, but I would consider it an unwritten resolution of mine for this year, as well. To be a better human to myself, I am going to drink water whenever I feel thirsty, hungry, upset, happy, tired, or sick. I am going to do myself the service of drinking water very, very often.
ii. hold open the door for more strangers
This might be on this list because my pet peeve is people who do not hold open the door for you--even though they definitely saw you and you know it. Or, even worse, holding open the door from someone and not getting any communication of gratitude from them. Personal grudges aside, it is always nice to have the door held open for you when you are just a ways behind another person. This does not mean waiting to the side and acting as the doorman for the next hour, though. Even just extending the door out to the person walking behind you, or abusing the power of the accessibility button to hold the door when you're in a rush is really helpful. That little smile from the slightly-winded person jogging to catch up with your kind extension of the door? That’s good a feeling, however brief it is.
iii. eat as in-season as possible
I doubt I will be very good at following this rule. I am _very_ guilty of buying avocados whenever I please from my chain grocer in Wintery south Ontario to meet my regular needs for avocado toast. Despite how incredibly expensive they are because they are not locally sourced and that I often buy them way too ripe, I choose to buy them because they are a really good source of healthy fats and they make me happy. My new rule is: if I buy avocados, I have to keep myself away from the open fridge with the non-local blueberries that I would normally indulge in, and if I really want them, I have to buy them frozen. The difference I am making is probably minimal at best, but it is a decision I make consciously to do better, and that makes me feel like a better human—if only minimally.
iv. always make a grocery list
You probably have already been told how terrible we all are at preventing food waste and that we need to buy local and stop using single-use plastics. I know, you know, we all know. The fact that we know means we should be doing something about it—I should be getting on the bus to get my produce from the farmer’s market. What you need to do is up to you.
Making a grocery list is me being good to me because I have a chronic illness called having eyes that can see the organic foods aisle. If I don’t make a list, I end up buying multiple Amy’s Kitchen’s frozen meals and six types of over-priced vegetable chips. Depleting half of my food budget with one grocery trip should not be my idea of treating myself. On a more personal note: grocery stores terrify me. They’re chaotically neutral spaces with mindless customers that walk too slowly and abandon their carts willy-nilly. For me, making a grocery list before entering the grocery store is basically what your brain does when you take control over your own nightmare. If you can relate, consider doing the same.
v. smile at someone
This suggestion I write as a woman who knows all too well what it is like to be expected to smile when not smiling, and whose smile has been sorely misinterpreted on more than one occasion. Your smile is not one that others deserve from you simply because. That said, I do enjoy it when a server or vendor visibly perks up because of a very minimal thing I did. A very tired airline agent went from being kind of disappointed with her life (the assumption I made from her general expression) to calling me sweetheart and wishing me safe travels with a warm smile of her own. Most importantly, of course, your smile does not oblige someone else to do the same. Let this be an act of altruism, and decide who to give your smile to today.
vi. share a meal
One of the sweetest things my roommate could ever do was offer me some of her dinner. As much as I enjoyed the offer because she had a tortilla press and was a damn good cook, it was also thoughtful of her to always ask when she made something she knew I liked eating. Sometimes she offered because she knew I was feeling anxious or sad, but sometimes she offered just to be kind. If you have housemates or friends or relatives who live nearby, consider making extra to share, especially if you know someone might be in need of some TLC. Nothing beats a home-cooked meal—if you’re not a huge cook, you can do what I did to return the favor: pick up their favorite sweet or snack on your way back home and leave it with a personalized note for them to find.
vii. pick up trash
If you notice that there is litter in your neighborhood, then grab some gloves and two garbage bags. This one requires very little explanation: we are all going to crash and burn but the least we can do is prolong our suffering. This is something I always think about doing when I'm out walking my dogs but never take the time to actually do. For the record: thinking about doing something really great and actually doing that great something are very different things. I know, crazy.
viii. pass on unloved items to a friend
Another friend of mine had me over at her place and asked me to help her decide what she should keep or donate from her wardrobe. When she showed me a casual blouse that she said wasn't really her style, I told her it was really cute and then she offered it to me. We have all made impulse purchases we quickly regretted, forgotten to return an item that we didn't try on in the store, or just misjudged products that ended up not suiting our needs. As great as donating to your local community centers and shelters is (and much easier than trying to sell, if we're being honest), ask your friends first if they want to take a look through your donations themselves. You can now go to sleep at night knowing that item won't waste away in an over-crowded storage unit only to be sent to a landfill, the sad reality for most donated items.
ix. check on someone you care about
For me, this means calling my grandparents, texting my sister and my friends, and shooting a life update to one of my parents. It’s taking the time to make sure no one I love is silently suffering (or just left on read and forgotten by their train wreck of a friend). This one always feels like the hardest, especially depending on how long it has been since you last made a virtual visit. You are allowed to feel ashamed for taking this long to pick up the phone, just don’t let it prolong you from reaching out. And if you’re being honest with yourself? You need this, too—and you should never feel shame for needing others in return.
I by no means have the authority to tell you what you must do to be a better anything. Indeed, my imperfections, composited into list-form, rests at the very uncomfortable, very odd number of nine; I lack so much authority over telling you how to be a better human that I failed to even come up with a perfectly round number ten of do-better things. Not to mention, it is a list I took ten days into the new year to complete. I am just a human trying to better myself, and I thought the best way to start would be to share this list with others. So let’s hold ourselves accountable this year, for the better.
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