As the clock approaches midnight tonight and we embark upon a new year, I will do two or three things:

1. Reflect on a year of accomplishments
2. Think about all my Big Plans for the Future
3. Beer

This is nothing new. I have, after all, gone through this process about 193 times now (although it feels like more). The reflection part typically involves a look back at the Todo List that I created for the year and noting that fewer than ten percent of the items got a check mark. My big plans are handled by copy-pasting ninety percent of the old todo list into a new one.

It’s always the same: clean up the house, compose some music, teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. I start the year with the best of intentions, but somehow life always gets in the way, and suddenly 365.25636 sidereal days later, and I’m right back where I started.

As Teddy Roosevelt so famously said in his Gettysburg Address, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a finished novel to come out of it.” So for the last few months, I’ve been thinking about my “2020 Vision” and how I might try something different to shake things up and I set a deadline of today.

Today is, after all, the traditional time to do so. When the old year goes out and the new year comes in, it’s a clean slate and anything becomes possible.

Except for one small problem. The clock ticking over from 2019-12-31 23:59:59.99 to 2020-01-01 00:00:00.00 doesn’t magically change anything. Same job, same obligations, same time constraints. The things I’d really like to do are simply incongruous with my lifestyle, which is why the last one hundred and ninety three years have played like a broken record.

But I’m not going to let defeat, self-doubt, and a scorching case of existential nihilism keep me down. This is a new year, gosh darn it! Heck, it’s even a new decade (setting aside the fact that that doesn’t start until next year.) If “failing” is an annual tradition then “optimistically looking forward” is as well. All I need to do to break the long cycle is to come up with a completely new set of goals.

This is still a work in progress, but I think I have a good start.

• Sit in the tub more often
• Play bass guitar for at least one minute a day, four days a week
• Select one day this year to consume nothing but cookies and port wine
• Stretch goal: while wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigar, walk away from an explosion in slow motion

Thoughts?