I love the peculiar mix of melancholy and hope that is Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Ring Out, Wild Bells." That's exactly how I feel standing on the cusp of the new year. New Year's Resolutions have become a painful irony in today's society; nonetheless, I continue to make them. And not just at the beginning of January--I tend to make them at the end of August as well as I contemplate the start of another school term.

Self-sabotage comes when we don't make our goals simple and reachable; more comes when we lose the vision of why we made them in the first place. I'm taking my cue from Tennyson this year. A little more kindness, a little less greed. Less feeling sorry for myself; more trying to help others. We can all do that, right?