Resolutions for me and you

There’s a history to New Year’s resolutions, you know. Evidently they started in ancient Babylon, which eventually became part of Iraq. Having covered news there over the years — in Iraq, not Babylon — one New Year’s resolution I’ll suggest to all of you is, don’t go there.

Anyway, the ancient Babylonians believed that by making promises at the new year to their pagan gods, and keeping them, they would remain in the gods’ favor and that’s right where they wanted to be. Us too, I guess. Typical Babylonians’ resolutions were about repaying or returning whatever they had borrowed. Not a bad goal for us either, I guess.

The trouble is, we don’t have those pagan gods breathing down our necks. Which is why, when Benjamin Franklin declared that the only sure things in life are death and taxes, he left out a third certainty: failed, flouted, foolish, unfulfilled New Year’s resolutions.

Still, though, ’tis the season. So I have a few resolutions for me, and a few more (forgive the hubris) for others. Which might mean you.

I resolve to appreciate the splendor of Colorado. Sure, I already do, but sometimes, after 30 years of living here, I take it for granted and forget to look.

I also resolve to appreciate the opinions of other people, no matter how boneheaded they seem. All it takes is remembering that mine seem just as boneheaded to them. Hand in hand with that resolution is this: listen more, talk less.

I resolve not to stand like a fool in a public restroom expecting every faucet, every soap dispenser, every towel machine to automatically feed me its goods. And I resolve to find out once and for all whether just because a container has that “recycle me” triangle on it, it means we can recycle the lid, too. Those lucky Babylonians didn’t have to worry about such stuff.

Another resolution: before they distribute disinformation to a wider audience, remind friends who forward fishy-smelling emails that there are credible websites whose only purpose is to fact-check. Facts aren’t the province of just one political ideology.

Plus, I resolve to eat less bread. This is the resolution I’m most likely to break, though, because I discovered Golden’s Grateful Bread, which supplies bread to lots of Denver’s fine restaurants and it’s as good as when I lived in France. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll resolve not to eat paté instead.

Now, for the rest of you. PulEEZE resolve not to tailgate. A study just declared Coloradans the eighth-worst drivers in the nation! Apparently they don’t teach here how dangerous it is to sit right behind me at 70 mph. If you want to get in my trunk, just ask. Otherwise, back off.

Now, if your job is setting up buffets, please resolve to put utensils at the end of the line, not the beginning. I’ve sat on too many plastic forks.

Also, for whoever designs the forms we fill in at doctors’ offices: where the lines for our “gender” and “marital status” are long enough to write a novel, shorten them. Where the lines for all our addresses are an inch long, lengthen them.

If you’re in the news media, please resolve to keep opinions where they belong, on the op-ed page. Journalists already have to make subjective choices about words, stories, questions, headlines. But that’s where it should end. Otherwise we degrade whatever public trust we have left.

As for soon-to-be President Donald Trump, can we resolve to “Give Trump a chance”? Although I wonder, will we still need the same resolution a year from now? Then two years, then three?

Finally, a righteous resolution for us all: Whether someplace you go or someone you meet, try to leave things better than when you came.

And most important, resolve to actually do what you resolve to do. It served the Babylonians well. For a while.