In 2015, I Want To …

Happy New Year!

Like it or not, the page has been turned and we’re now in a brand new year.

If you’re like most people, today will be a day of looking forward (after you get over your hangover, anyway). It’ll be a day of making resolutions and declaring all the things you know you should do this year that you probably won’t. (No joke: According to the University of Scranton, only 8% of people are actually successful in achieving their resolutions.)

I’ve long believed that the reason New Year’s Resolutions suck and never work is because they’re always things people don’t actually want to do. If there’s an inherent negativity in everything you list, and no one wants to stick to something negative, why would you even bother? (Case in point, when I took this BuzzFeed quiz, it told me I should resolve to stop wearing pants. Ha! Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen.)

I choose to take a more positive attitude when it comes to this kind of thing. Last year, I came up with a list of five resolutions I actually wanted to accomplish and knew I could, and I’d like to think I stuck to every one of them. And that was without the help of a “rememberlutions jar.” (Huzzah!)

This year, as a twist on that idea, I’ve decided to merge my “resolutions” list with a “to-do” list, and compile all the things I actually want to do this year.

I can do these things. And I know I’ll enjoy doing them too. For example, this year, I want to …

1. Go to Denver and, among other things, (finally) see Red Rocks in person

2. Raise my socks game

3. Be less self-centered and self-centric, and let people “in” more often

4. Go to my first New England Patriots game

5. Challenge myself professionally

6. Find new “regular” places to eat, to replace Finagle a Bagel and Johnny’s Luncheonette

7. Cook for myself more often

8. Prune my LinkedIn contacts list of all the people I don’t know and have never once come in contact with outside of LinkedIn

9. Listen to more Zac Brown Band music

10. See While We’re Young and Jurassic World as soon as I possibly can

11. Have a doctor’s physical

12. Take a ride on Codzilla

13. Not watch the new season of Girls

14. Use my long-dormant golf clubs

15. Eat better, so I can lose a few pounds (wishful thinking, but we’ll see what happens)

16. Tweet less — or at least, tweet better

17. Be a better friend

18. Go on dates more often

19. See Bruce Springsteen in concert

20. See Jamie Cullum in concert

21. See Fleetwood Mac in concert

22. Write more blog posts

23. Go to a couple Red Sox games

24. Play some tennis

25. Re-experience Waterfire in Providence, RI

26. See a Broadway show

27. Finish watching the first two seasons of Orange Is the New Black (preferably before season three starts, whenever that is)

28. Buy a new computer

29. Purge; I have too much clothes, too many CDs and unread books, too much old mail piled up on my kitchen counter, too many saved magazines, too many unheard audio files on my computer … too much stuff taking up too much space

30. Go back to Burlington, VT

31. Watch season three of House of Cards as quickly as possible after February 27, before someone spoils it

32. Get back into the habit of walking — or even running — around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir

33. Leave for work earlier so I can arrive before 9 a.m.

34. Unsubscribe from more email lists, instead of just deleting the messages every time they arrive

35. Listen to the new James Morrison album (and hopefully there will be one) as soon as I possibly can

36. Mind my own business more often

37. Watch a movie at the Mendon Drive-In

38. Get a dry-erase board for my apartment, so I can write down things I need to buy, do, or remember — because I’ve become much more forgetful than I’d like to be

39. Celebrate what people do right more often than I criticize what they do wrong

40. Participate in a meetup with other local Instagrammers

41. Keep my apartment clean — with or without the help of a professional cleaning person/service

42. Not be too annoying about how much I’m looking forward to the second season of You’re the Worst

43. Do a better job of taking pictures with some of my closest friends. It’s odd how I don’t have any documentation of the time I spend with the people I’m tightest with

44. Read an entire book from start to finish

45. Visit Cape Cod over the summer, something I’ve never done

46. Get over things faster

47. Spend less time alone

Yes, this is a long list (and for the record, it’s in no particular order). But it’s all things I’m going into with a positive frame of mind, so I’m not worried about accomplishing them.

Check back with me 12 months from now to see how I did.

Do you have any new year’s resolutions? What are they? Share your thoughts in the comments section below, or tweet about them.