It’s a New Year and we can finally leave 2020 in the past. Like every other year, a lot of people came up with New Year’s resolutions to help motivate them to become a better version of themselves. Creating New Year’s resolutions can be a healthy way to “restart” as each year is a new beginning. Head of the Uppers School History department, Dr. James Foley believes everyone should take the opportunity to reflect over the previous year and improve on it. 

     “I think New Year’s resolutions can be a healthy endeavor for us,” Foley said. “The beginning of each year is a period of renewal for us, one where we can examine our lives and make changes that will work to our benefit. The beginning of a year is thus a period of possibilities that are open for us to consider and explore.” 

     This year, Foley created a few different New Year’s resolutions for himself. 

      “I have several New Year’s resolutions for this year,” Foley said. “One of them is to keep up with my daily Bible reading. It is my goal to read the entire Bible in a calendar year. So far, I am keeping up with this goal. Another goal I have is to walk each day. I did a pretty good job over our holiday break, walking roughly every other day, but I have experienced difficulty in keeping up with this goal since we resumed classes. Third, I want to eat a healthier diet this year, which means reducing my consumption of carbohydrates and sugar. I have some work to do on this goal.”

     Foley wasn’t the only person in the SA community who created resolutions this year. Upper School Science teacher Gracie Bellnap and Senior Trey Hebert also wanted to set goals for themselves.

     “I am just trying to focus on football and get ready for college,” Hebert said. 

     “This year my New Year’s resolution was to acknowledge gratitude throughout my day more often, in an attempt to minimize feelings of anxiousness or stress,” Bellnap said.

     Bellnap also found herself continuing a resolution that she created in elementary school. 

     “I think as a first grader, I said I wanted to be nicer to the people that were not nice to me,” Bellnap said. “This one girl, her name was Karen, would kick me under the desks and I would get so mad at her. But I decided at the new year that I would be nice to her even when she was mean. And I think that being kind even when it’s hard, is something that has actually stuck with me since then!”

      Everyone has different goals for themselves and should focus on creating resolutions that will improve their own health, rather than trying to create a certain resolution because everyone else is doing it. This year is a good time to restart and focus on yourself.