New Years' So-lutions

It's that time of year. In with the new, out with the old. Turn over a new leaf. Make a new beginning. Get a clean start, etc. etc. We can't help but be a little reflective and that's a good thing . . .

. . . Except that, upon reflection, what most of us see is that we made a real mess of things--again --last year. How did that happen? What about our well-intended resolutions from a year ago? Or, the year before that. Or . . . well, you know the feeling. It's depressing. Will we ever get it right? Will we ever improve? In this case, past performance probably does indicate future results. It seems likely that we will not.

But this is a gloomy, cup-half-empty kind of view. Our year-end reflections, which leads to our year-beginning resolutions, always focus on our failures, on what we didn't get right. Now there may be a few people who just screwed up everything they touched last year (sort of a reverse, Midas effect), but for most of us, any year, any month or any day is a real mixed bag. We have some good times and some bad. We win some and lose some. Hopefully, we are able to advance, even if only by the two-steps forward, one-step back method of propulsion. But even if we feel like we're just treadmilling it...

Consider all the things that went right last year. Instead of a list of resolutions, how about a list of so-lutions. What problems did you fix in 2014? In what ways did you improve? Consider how those successes came about. Is there anything instructive there? Here's what you might find:

• Last year wasn't so bad after all.

• Life is full of ups and downs (just a reminder!)

• Progress is often achieved in small increments (the old how-to-eat-an-elephant strategy). Because of that ...

• Patience and perseverance are crucial.

Such reflection may lead to a new to-do list (call them resolutions if you like), one that offers a more realistic an