I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions, if I’m completely honest. While I understand the desire to embrace the new year while attempting to carve out a new you (in any number of possible ways), in my experience it always seems to lead to failure, and then regret, and then backsliding. And pretty soon the best laid plans of mice and men are replaced by an extra large pepperoni pizza instead of that regular trip to the gym.

Not to say that I don’t plan on getting a gym membership in 2025. I do. I’m just not sure when it’s going to happen yet, and that’s okay. I’d rather take my time and get it done when I’m ready than try to follow an arbitrary calendar date.

If I had tried to hit the gym on Jan. 1, I can almost guarantee I’d have already given up on those New Year’s plans. This way, I still have another 350 or so days to get started before I let myself down.

I’ve also recently heard about people doing New Year’s affirmations instead of resolutions (or maybe alongside them? I’m not sure). These are statements about what you might intend for the coming year along the lines of, “I start the new year, and continue every day, sending and receiving peace and love,” or “I am creating financial abundance, a healthy body, and positive relationships in 2025.”

But for me these just seem like resolutions by way of self-hypnosis. Which, if it works for you, that’s great, but my brain has always been eager to find ways to avoid doing things, and unfortunately my body has always been willing to support my brain in that way.

I do have hopes for 2025 — and wow is that a crazy year for me to find myself typing. I can’t remember the last time the year didn’t sound like it came from a science fiction movie, and I realize that’s something that comes with age. The year 2030s are when the film V for Vendetta takes place. For my kids, that’s just the decade they’ll graduate.

What was I saying? Oh yes, plans for 2025.

Well we’ve got the plans for this little paper here to consider, the big one being the plan to at the very least keep putting out an issue every month, with the hope to increase that frequency to twice a month and, eventually, to weekly. Not sure how long that’ll take, or even if it’ll happen in 2025, but it’s a goal that we’ve set for ourselves.

I also hope to continue my livestreaming project that I’m pursuing with Telus Storyhive, which is on YouTube as On Location in Kamloops with Todd and Kelsey. It’s focused on telling interesting and informative local stories about the people, places, and things that make Kamloops the unique place to live that it is.

I still feel new to Kamloops, having moved here only 10 years ago, but I’m incredibly glad to call it my home these days, and am grateful for all the lovely people I’ve met so far, and the ones I still have yet to meet.

Outside of that I’ve also been dabbling in filmmaking for the last few years, and in March I’m headed to a film festival in Seattle with a short film I made with some good friends last year. It was our entry in the 48 Hour Film Project, an annual event that encourages filmmakers to try to craft a short film in just 48 hours. The Thompson-Okanagan region has had an official presence for the last two years, and the film we made won best film for this region and so will be screened at the Filmapalooza festival.

That’s a whole lot of stuff going on and I haven’t even talked about my day job yet. And I’m not going to because it’s kind of boring.

So I guess if I’m to have any kind of resolution for 2025, it’s to just keep on keeping on, trying to be the best version of me that I can be. Eating less, exercising more, and continuing to cut down on the alcohol. While also continuing to push myself creatively, professionally, and sure, personally too.

I also want to get better at the ukulele.

Do our readers have any hopes for the new year? Any resolutions? We’d love to hear about them here at the Chronicle. Shoot us a letter at [email protected] and share your resolutions with us. Be sure to include Intended for print in the subject line so we know for sure.