My 36 Resolutions for 2026
By Nancy Davidoff Kelton
1. Go to the gym three or four times a week.
2. Use as many machines as I do towels.
3. Do not count by threes when I do sit-ups.
4. Do all the stretches on the list my physical therapist gave me.
5. Do not expect the stretches to make me taller.
6. Do not work out at the gym when my husband is working out there. He burns more calories on the bike, holds his plank poses longer, and is in better shape than I am.
7. Remind myself that his shape, stamina and age—he is younger than I am—are not the reasons I love him.
8. Tell him more than once a day that I love him and not just when he is cooking a terrific dinner or doing the dishes.
9. Do not gossip.
10. Forget # 9. Do not gossip with anyone but my friend Molly. She knows more and talks faster than my other friends.
11. Practice the piano three times a week and improve how I play Chopin and Beethoven.
12. Practice kindness daily.
13. And forgiveness.
14. Do not hang out with people who lack empathy, sensitivity, and the wisdom to know they lack them.
15. When I come across them in work or especially at family gatherings, do not personalize. Their lack of empathy and sensitivity is their problem.
16. And these people are stupid.
17. In restaurants, do not say I am skipping dessert and then eat half of everyone else’s.
18. Stay in touch with my college friends who live in Arizona, on the west coast, in Europe, or are orbiting in another galaxy.
19. Stay in touch with my high school friends even the ones who majored in cheerleading.
20. Stay in touch with my dreams.
21. Do not get defensive when a relative wonders why I do not have a cleaning woman, a microwave oven, a desire to watch current episode TV shows, and a desire to walk with other people rather than alone.
22. Do not get defensive when she wonders about the other ways I am not like her.
23. Continue to cherish my time alone.
24. Remind myself and people who know and like me that I enjoy being a guest far more than a host.
25. Remind myself that not all the hosts to whom I bring babka from the best bakery in town like babka.
26. Eliminate chocolate chip cookies from my diet.
27. Unless they are chewy.
28. Write regularly even when it is hard to caucus with my muse.
29. Appreciate how terrific it was that my mother gave me a copy of The Feminine Mystique when I was 15 and told me to read it so I will understand her better and have a better life than she did.
30. Understand how my peers said their mothers would never dream of giving them that book nor would they read it themselves. They thought that my mother’s giving me The Feminine Mystique was a no-no and was like giving me Peyton Place.
31. Appreciate that after I took one ballet class, my mother stopped at the store to buy me toe shoes and when I said I didn’t want to get out of the car, get the shoes or take ballet, because I didn’t like it, she said fine and drove home.
32. Appreciate how understanding and loving my mother was in ways I did not see when I was growing up and then spent considerable time as an adult discussing in therapy.
33. Appreciate that when I was eight my parents took me to see The Diary of Anne Frank on Broadway—we lived 400 miles away. Every year after that, until I moved to New York City at age 20, we drove here for shows.
34. Appreciate how much I wish I could tell my parents in heaven that I treasure their gifts and how much of their caring wonderful selves they gave me. Right on top were a sense of humor, a love of books, and a love of the theater.
35. Continue to appreciate and love my funny, smart, sweet, kind, generous children and grandchildren and take enormous pride in them more than I can ever say.
36. Put this list in a drawer to use again next year.
