The Best New Year’s Resolution

Welcome to This Week’s Leyendecker View

Comparison is the thief of joy.
– Theodore Roosevelt

THINKING OUT LOUD

The Best New Year’s Resolution

According to Pew Research, about 30% of all Americans make at least one New Year’s resolution. But almost 50% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 make at least one New Year’s resolution.

What should we think when the younger generation seems more inclined to “fix” something in their lives than older folks are? Haven’t the older folks made more mistakes in their lives they would like to fix? Or do most of the older folks not care about fixing things or improving on their lives?

Do we just give up as we get older? Do we become complacent? Have older folks tried this New Year’s resolution thing in the past only to fail, and maybe fail miserably, and just not bother anymore?

The average New Year’s resolution fails within the month of January.

Maybe our problem is that we’re making the wrong New Year’s resolutions.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, the most common New Year’s resolutions are…

Eat healthier
Work out more
Drink less
Manage stress
Quit smoking (or vaping)
Cook more
Create better work-life balance
Prioritize mental health

That sounds like a comprehensive list, unless you don’t smoke or vape. Maybe drinking less should also include smoking less pot or whatever other “recreational drugs” one might be doing.

Surely there are myriad other New Year’s resolutions that people make depending on their circumstances. Things like…

Lose weight
Be nicer to my spouse
Don’t let my spouse dominate me as much
Spend less money on stupid stuff
Spend more time with my kids (or grandkids)
Spend more time with my aging parent(s)
Get a promotion
Make more money
Save more money
Clean out the garage (attic)
Paint the house
Remodel something
Get rid of my self-storage space
Read more books
Spend more time in nature

The list can get pretty endless, eh? Gosh, who has the time? I mean really, there’s an obvious impediment to fulfilling any list of New Year’s resolutions—time. We have to remind ourselves of a resolution all the time, and then we need to actually allocate time to each of our goals.

Time. Who has extra time laying around? What activities are we going to quit so we can find the time to focus on our desired improvements?

Data suggests that only 9% of the people who make New Year’s resolutions (30% of Americans) actually accomplish them. 

I’ve not been one to make New Year’s resolutions, or at least I can’t remember the last time I did. Maybe in my 20s, based on the data. But I do have a resolution that we can all make on New Year’s, or perhaps every day of the year.

Strive to improve at everything you do. 

Of course that sort of doesn’t work if we’re a criminal. Yikes! If any readers are criminals then maybe your resolution should be “Be a better human being.”

Strive to improve at everything you do, all the time. 

There’s one easy way to accomplish this resolution: Repeat it to yourself every single day of the year. Maybe you say it at night, before falling asleep. Maybe you say it first thing in the morning. Maybe you even say it while driving to work, or just at random moments in the day.

Does constantly repeating to ourselves “I will strive to get better at everything I do” sound like prayer? Well, in a way it is. Whether you’re asking for God’s help or you’re just throwing it out there to the universe, it doesn’t matter. Or maybe you do it just to reprogram your brain. What the mind repeats tends to manifest in our behavior.

Strive to improve at everything you do, all the time. 

Hope you surprise yourself and accomplish way more than you expected this year!

ECONOMIC NEWS

Economy
The stock market boomed in 2024. The economy, meh.

Consumer confidence declines
Boeing has another problem in South Korea
Automakers are discounting again
Walmart makes towns poorer
Credit card defaults are a growing problem
US homeless count hits record

Inflation, deflation, whatever
We seem to have a bit of both.

Breakfast inflation is real
Why coffee prices are soaring
Home prices up 3.6% in last year
Is deflation in diamonds coming?
And fine wine, too?

Labor
Will AI create more jobs than it destroys?

The rise in worker productivity isn’t all good
Jobless claims sink to 8-month low
Reshoring needs more factory workers
Job market winners and losers with AI

BUSINESS

Finance
Are the big investment returns in front of or behind us?

Corporate insiders are cashing in
VC portcos struggle to grow value
Number of VC firms is falling

Real Estate
Plenty of inflation still in real estate.

Mortgage rate is almost 7%
NYC hotel rates are through the roof
Mobile home prices are soaring

Tech
More immigrant labor or more AI?

Net neutrality rules struck down
Tech needs to hire H-1B visas
AI makes workers less happy
The worst 2024 tech failures

The Energy Transition
More expensive energy is an economic downer.

More banks leave net-zero group
Consumer solar in Germany is struggling
More people are dying in cold weather
AI power needs threaten your power needs
Big oil backtracks on renewables
NY to tax Americans for climate change
More LNG headed out of Corpus Christi

THE NATION

The Washing-tone
Managing the USA isn’t so easy.

China hacked the US Treasury
Was UnitedHealth gaming Medicare?
Trump supports H-1B visas
The visa debate explainer
Middlemen are gaming the H-1B system
FBI finds giant cache of home-made explosives

The DOGE
Is DOGE bipartisan?

Top Democrats support DOGE
Could DOGE help the SEC collect $10B?

Social Trends
Does the economy affect society or vice versa?

Homeless problems challenge blue states
Craft beer is on the decline
The luxury economy is in decline
NBA ratings are falling hard
Has the video game era peaked?
Barnes & Noble opens 60 new stores

GEOPOLITICS

Europe
The EU has big challenges.

French red wine in sharp decline
Europe auto parts suppliers struggle
Europe loses Russian gas via Ukraine
VW makes big labor concessions
Norway seeks to cut their power exports

Global
There’s always a war somewhere.

Africa enters a new era of war
Myanmar is the global crime capital
Saudi Arabia’s city of the future is a hellhole

Ukraine
Are both sides waiting for a Trump deal?

Ukraine ups its killer robot drone game
Biden sending more billions to Ukraine
Moscow and Kiev exchange prisoners
Russia’s shadow fleet is effective

Middle East
The land of perpetual chaos.

What if Unrwa leaves Palestine?
Syrians’ new leaders push Islamist education agenda
Syria names female central banker
Israel and Hamas back to fighting
Houthis are a nuisance
Israel hits Houthis again
US hits Houthis again

War Creep
Is more war coming soon?

Russia trained officers for attacks on Japan and South Korea
Pakistan pounds Afghanistan with air strikes
Japan set for record defense spending

China
Will their turn inward cause economic and moral decline?

China hits back at US with trade controls
China’s BYD posts record sales
China ready to take on Boeing and Airbus
Some good graphs on China’s malaise
China has a persistent deflation problem
What’s so bad about deflation?, asks Xi

MAKING A BETTER YOU

Financial regrets and wisdom of Americans over 80

Mind
Get more quiet time.

We can learn from Confucius and Aristotle
Silence your brain to think feral
Don’t think you’re a math person? Think again

Body
Get more outside time.

We should do these exercises we hate
Breathe better, live better
The key to living a long life

FUN STUFF

The Extraordinary
Like WOW!

The internet is faster than human thought
We’re all made of “star stuff”
Could we be living in a multiverse?

Music That Found Us
“God Only Knows”
Go for it, Beach Boys!

“Of Monsters and Men”
A good hour of The Cabin Sessions.

JJ Grey & Mofro.
“Lochloosa” live.

​​Worth a Watch
We Live in Time trailer, charming Pugh and Garfield.
I missed this one, It Might Get Loud trailer.
The White Lotus season 3 trailer.
The hidden gems of 2024

The Yum Yums
It’s beef bourguignon season
Simple and can’t-beat chicken marsala
The best crispy potatoes ever
A really nice rice pudding

THE RANDOMS

Video games are in decline. Might this suggest a trend toward returning to the real world?

Trump wants to cut US energy costs in half. This will prove a big challenge, since private-sector energy companies will naturally reduce their investment if their profits fall measurably. Reduced investment will restrict supply, which will drive up prices.

What are the unintended consequences of humans’ efforts to control the weather?

Will the upside of AI be that private citizens can now very quickly digest 1,000+ page government bills so there’s no longer the need to pass them just to see what’s in them?

Let’s say the US gets into a war some time in the future. If so, how easy would it be for an enemy to knock out our offshore wind turbines?

To live in the midst of beauty created by the gifted is to be lucky. To live in the midst of beauty created by the average is to be blessed.

If you’re curious where that thought came from, come see the “yarn art” collection at my house in Smithville, TX one day.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Happy Birthday, Jesus!
December 27, 2024

What Is The Leyendecker View?
December 20, 2024