Resolutions are so overrated

“Tonight’s December thirty-first, Something is about to burst … Hark, it’s midnight, children dear. Duck! Here comes another year!”

—Ogden Nash “Well, I’ve completed my New Year’s resolutions,” a buddy bragged last week.

“Resolutions are so overrated,” I said. “They just go in one year and out the other.”

I laughed. I thought it was funny. Popping off, however, compelled me to start thinking about some sort of, let’s say, focus, for the new year.

Resolving to make it through another year with a smile and being here this time next year for a progress report should be our first focus. Iconic comedian Groucho Marx said it best when he reportedly was asked in an interview what he hoped people would say about him 100 years from now.

He said, “I hope they say, ‘Boy, doesn’t he look good for his age?’” It was also Groucho who said (in possibly one of the very few serious quotes he was credited with), “I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”

Honestly, who does not want to live a long and happy life? Probably no one … except maybe one of my relatives.

Just ask him how he is doing, and he likely will growl, “Well, I was in a good mood this morning, but I am about to get over it.”

Some say he’s not grumpy, just being funny. Really? You should meet him.

A few years ago, I sent said relative a book I enjoyed. Written by University of California, Los Angeles postdoctoral researcher Alex Korb, “The Upward Spiral” validates my thoughts on the rewards of happiness.

Korb said listening to music from the happiest times of our past becomes our happiness in the present because we embrace music associated with intense emotional life experiences.

I have been a happiness seeker as long as I can remember, and my happiest memories have always been moments in music. Listening to music, studying it, making it and thinking about it. I can’t be involved with music and be unhappy.

My Uncle Bill, my mom’s baby brother, personified that musical theory long before Korb’s book appeared in print. And, no, Uncle Bill is not the grumpy relative. He’s the life and humor of every family reunion. He’s also the one who taught me a fun music game many years ago.

Get a bunch of people together and start playing music from your younger years. Encourage every person to share the memories each song evokes, the city where they first heard the tune, the car they were driving at the time and the girl or the guy they were dating. Smiles and laughter will be spontaneous.

Uncle Bill’s music game supports another of Korb’s happiness theories. Just smile; smile when you are happy, smile when you’re not happy and smile all the time.

“Why would I want to do that?” my grumpy relative once asked.

Mom had the answer: “Smile. It makes everyone wonder what you’ve been up to.”

According to Korb, “The brain isn’t always very smart.”

The author contends that it responds to the world around us, sorting through random information and looking for clues on how to react. Therefore, when you smile, even when you aren’t happy, smiling fools the brain into thinking you must, in fact, be happy after all, causing it to send happy signals, even though you really feel otherwise.

So, for 2026, I resolve to keep enjoying my favorite music, beckoning to those intense emotional memories that keep me smiling, convincing my brain that I’m happy all the time, and keeping everyone wondering, “What is he up to?”

Then what remains, to quote Groucho one last time, is that, “Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.”

“Duck, here comes another year!” With it comes my wish to all for a happy, blessed and prosperous year – especially my crabby relative.