I’m writing this and it’s January 15, 2026. Since the beginning of the month, I have been bombarded with ads for zero initiation fee sales on gym memberships, meditation apps or language-learning subscriptions. Maybe you have been too. After telling me that “women already have so much going on, how can they be expected to reinvent themselves every new year,” a radio ad tried to sell me multivitamins. I probably need them, but the ad is right – there’s a lot of pressure.
I am not opposed to self improvement. Throughout the year I try to regularly re-examine my habits and hobbies and moods and try to make decisions to improve the things that are not feeling so good. These evaluations are often prompted by the oncoming of a blooming spring, or a colorful fall, or if I’m in a rut, which makes the argument that maybe a more sensible time for self-improvement could take place during a time of the year when we can tap into a more natural inertia for change or maybe, I don’t know, in the moment when things really don’t feel so good and we instead learn to take notice and prompt action. But on an arbitrary day in the middle of winter? When the sun is in the sky for less than 10 hours a day? The holiday parties are over. A recent visit with family may have triggered a maturity regression of about 15 years. We’re staring down the barrel of another 2-3 months of most people’s most dreaded time of year. Now is simply not the time to be better in every aspect of your life, overnight.
When a colleague asked what my new year’s resolutions were, I told him I don’t do those. However, a quick confessional: I haven’t had an alcoholic beverage in 20 days, but the other night I had Quadratinis for dinner. I went on a jog when the sun came out, the first time in weeks for both. It felt horrible. I had no regrets. It’s been weeks since. Before bed, I’ve been reading instead of going on my phone, but I haven’t been getting up on time. Over the holidays, a parent (I won’t say which), said he was disappointed in my general sense of apathy towards the “climate” (I won’t say which). I blamed it on gun violence, but now I’m thinking I’ll “get involved” (not in gun violence, the “climate”). I am not Good, but I am in attempt of it.
In the middle of this austere, cold, wintry month, I’d like to leave you with a poem, the first line of which has been ringing in my head since January 1.
You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
– “Wild Geese,” by Mary Oliver.
