Lori Falce: Making resolutions about others

We have it in us to be better.

On New Year’s Day, televisions and social media ads will be filled with the same thing. They will offer a hundred different ways to sell self-improvement.

Download this app and track your calories. Subscribe to that streaming service and learn a language. Buy this watch and count your steps. Watch this show and reorganize your home.

It’s good to take stock of where you are in your life and what you could change. There is always something else we could do to get a little closer to the people we want to be.

But maybe this year, we should spend less time focusing inward and a little more improving outwardly.

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic meant we spent so much time locked away from our friends and neighbors. We had 10 months to learn new skills like breadmaking and gardening and crocheting.

We definitely had time to cook more. We ate out less. We spent time with our families — sometimes to the point of needing a little distance. We got to read books we had put off and watch that Netflix series we had been meaning to watch for years. Parks and forests were utilized more than ever as people got in touch with their inner outdoorsman.

Is there really much left for us to personally resolve?

In 2021, let’s make it about others.

Nationally, food banks are being used at never-­before-seen levels. The pandemic’s economic fallout has left people unemployed or underemployed and with more uncertain income.

So let’s resolve not to put less on our own plates but to put more on someone else’s by donating food or time or money.

Fire companies and ambulance services are working harder than ever and doing so with extra risk. Saving people’s lives isn’t an activity that can be done with social distancing. But at the same time, they are forced to do so without their typical fundraising activities.

So rather than focusing on our own finances, we could make helping these necessary, selfless organizations a priority instead. If we can’t play bingo at a fire hall, we can play it at home and still send a local department a check.

Many museums and arts groups are scrambling to find ways to survive when the doors are closed. They are doing the responsible thing by putting health and safety first, but it can make it hard to hang on until the pandemic is over.

So instead of reorganizing your closet, what about sorting through the various nonprofits that mean something to you? Give the cost of a ticket to a theater company or the price of a fundraiser dinner to the museum you’ve meant to visit but haven’t. Because maybe if you do, that museum will still be there in a few months.

We spent so much of 2020 trying to do things that saved lives. We wore masks, and we stayed home. We sat at least 6 feet apart, and we skipped church and graduations and baseball games. We did what we could to save our bodies.

Maybe 2021 can be about saving the things that make life worth living.