Good morning. Today, we're covering New Year's resolutions. We're also covering a plane crash in South Korea, travel to Afghanistan and the 2024 Faces Quiz.
Self-improvement
Does it feel like there's something gauche — maybe a little anachronistic — about New Year's resolutions? They run counter to the idea that we should accept who we are. That we should give ourselves grace. "Do you have any New Year's resolutions?" It's a question that asks someone to believe they are inadequate. And I get that. My colleague Melissa Kirsch argues that resolutions shouldn't be so grand that we set ourselves up to fail. Maybe it's better to admit we won't improve in the new year — a dose of realism with our Champagne. No thanks. I love resolutions, and I love hearing what work other people choose to do on themselves. I think there's a way to be better without believing you are deficient. A New Year's resolution is an opportunity to give myself a sense of accomplishment. A gift to future me. I've begun writing an annual list of things I want to do in the new year. This morning, I want to write my resolutions with you — and hopefully convince you to craft your own ideas for self-improvement. That subject — "self-improvement" — is a bookstore section with a million entries. And real scholarship has looked at how people change, or try to. There are techniques that work for anyone hoping to make a change. But for me, I follow three rules. It has to be measurable. "Eat at home more" might be a resolution, but it's vague enough that you'll never be accountable. "Eat at home five times a week" is a resolution. It has to be realistic. There's no way I can exercise for an hour every day for a month. Life gets in the way, and everyone needs rest. But exercise 10 times in a month? That's definitely something I can do. You have to want to do it. The truth is, I hate cardio and strength training. It wouldn't be any good for me to write those down as resolutions, because they're just chores. But I love yoga. It's fun and relaxing. I feel accomplished and confident when I become more flexible. Here's what I'm writing on my paper: Do yoga for an hour 10 times in one month. Don't bite your nails for two consecutive months. See the dentist twice this year. Paint a painting. Ride a roller coaster. Make a new friend. (This one's going to be a hard one.) Then I fold the list up and put it away. That's right. It's gone from my life. I don't look at it until the end of the year. This isn't homework. There's no final exam. A new start is more like extra credit. If I made my list right, at the end of the year, I'll find that I accomplished a lot of what I set out to do. Not everything, of course — I've tried to quit biting my nails before, but I haven't yet crossed it off. Yet my resolutions usually work out. Why? Taking the time to think about what you want to do and who you want to be is the hardest part. Writing it down sets you up to be mindful of yourself and your goals. The satisfaction of crossing your resolutions off at the end of the year (or the self-reflection about why you weren't able to) will motivate you to keep improving. Best of all, there's no pressure. We have an entire year to work on them. In fact, I can cross off something from my previous list right now: Publish an article in The New York Times.
Plane Crash
Israel-Hamas War
Russia
Politics
Other Big Stories
Is Biden's commutation of 37 death sentences a win for death penalty abolitionists? No. Biden left three people on death row, implying that execution is acceptable in some cases. "In the larger debate of ideas, death penalty abolitionists lost a round," The Washington Post's Charles Lane writes. Yes. The three remaining death row prisoners are seeking appeals, making it almost impossible for another execution to occur any time soon. "President Biden has lived up to his promise as the first president to openly oppose capital punishment," Russ Feingold writes for The Hill.
Tariffs will hurt other countries more than American consumers, Eswar Prasad argues. Telehealth is an opportunity for doctors to speak to patients without distractions. Helen Ouyang writes that virtual appointments made her a better doctor. Here's a column by Frank Bruni on the year's best sentences. The Holiday Sale ends soon. Subscribe to Cooking. Main dishes. Side dishes. And all the cookies, too. Cooking recipes are for every taste and skill level. Save on your first year.
Most popular: The 2024 Faces Quiz was the most clicked article in The Morning this week. Play it here. Old masters: He grew up poor and once drove a taxi. So how did he become a major art collector and donor? N.F.L.: With two weeks left in the season, 10 teams are still in the hunt for unclaimed playoff spots. See a team-by-team breakdown. Flying? Here's how to actually sleep on a plane. Social Q's: "Sharing a bedroom with my partner and her siblings for the holidays. Odd or not?" Trauma: Taffy Brodesser-Akner wrote a story about it. Readers wrote in about their own. Vows: They shared the spotlight on their wedding day with an aunt. Lives Lived: Kirsten Simone was a leading ballerina in Denmark and then worldwide. She also played a version of herself in a Disney TV movie. She died at 90.
Click the cover image above to read this week's magazine.
Editors' picks: "What in Me Is Dark," about the impact of Milton's "Paradise Lost," and four other books. Coming soon: Novels by Adam Ross and Han Kang are expected next month. See what to read in January. Ahead of its time: Robert Coover's "The Public Burning" was so outrageous in 1977 that it nearly wasn't published. Reality has caught up to his masterpiece, Alexander Nazaryan writes. Obituary: Michel del Castillo, a Franco-Spanish writer whose wrenching chronicle of a childhood spent in World War II concentration camps brought him renown on both sides of the Atlantic, died at 91.
Upgrade your dishwasher. See the seven new shows our theater critics are talking about. Travel with Wirecutter's favorite accessories of 2024.
In the "Five Weeknight Dishes" newsletter, Emily Weinstein shares one-pot dinners that are nice but also casual — cozy, even — for the lazy days between Christmas and New Year's Day, when you want to be anywhere but in the kitchen doing the dishes. They include chicken and rice with ginger and lemony shrimp and bean stew.
Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangrams were connective, convention, convective, convenient, convention, eviction and inconvenient. Can you put eight historical events — including the publication of "The Color Purple" and Pope Boniface VIII's declaration of the Jubilee — in chronological order? Take this week's Flashback quiz. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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domingo, 29 de diciembre de 2024
The Morning: The case for resolutions
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