My Two-Cents: NYE Resos, Part 3
For the past three years, I’ve written an Ns2c resolution post. This year, I added a halfway-point resolution post too (all linked below, if you need inspiration for new ways to improve, or strategically stagnate, your life in 2026).
In my 2025 post, I barked about how I like to wait a couple weeks into January to publish the damn thing. It gives me time to workshop my initial resos and see which ones might actually work. But 2026 is apparently the year of turning new leaves, so I’m trying something different — getting an early start. Last night, I met a few buddies at our favorite West Side bar, the Liebrary, and we workshopped 2026 resolutions on a napkin. (Side note: I love this bar because when people ask why I look so tired the next day, I get to say “late night at the Liebrary,” and it’s not a lie. They assume I was being studious. I let them.)
Below is the rough-draft napkin list of things elaborated to full form. Cheers!
Start a bar where movies are always playing. Sip an old-fashioned and watch Good Will Hunting on a random Tuesday. If I don’t start it in 2026, speak it into existence so someone else does.
Emulate your enemies. If you can’t beat them, join them.
Make enemies worth emulating. Bring back a good old-fashioned arch nemesis.
Start book clubs, but for podcasts.
Talk with cha hands. Give people dinner and a show
Learn a healthy amount of being booked and busy. Nail the middle ground. Less whiplash between extremes.
Bother people. Bring back being a nuisance and a buffoon.
Be an NPC. Float through life when needed. Normalize NPC days. Do no major character development here.
Decide which Matrix character you and your friends would be.
Tell people you don’t fuck with that they’d be Cypher.
Go through personal development and realize Cypher makes sense in his own context.
Understand that everyone makes sense in their own context.
Understand people without agreeing with them.
Be patient.
Do things that give you childlike joy. Rollerblade and Water-paint. Just maybe not at the same time.
Be bad at things. Remember that the most dangerous people aren’t afraid to be bad. They’re thinkers, doers, and magic-makers. Do things you’re terrible at and don’t let your badness scare you away from potential goodness. Start a Mai Tai class. Butcher a new musical instrument with panache. Get a little better at Mai Tai and the instrument with time.
Play Bop-It. Then Twist-It. Then Pull-It. Question where the fuck all the bop-its went?
Workshop it. Put the idea on the table. Tell it to take a few laps.
Never finish a full pitcher of beer. If you finish a full pitcher, you have to think, Wow, that pitcher probably had five or six beers in it. I feel bad that I had that much beer on a Tuesday. But if you never fully finish the pitcher, you get to think, I don’t actually know how much beer I had. I didn’t have the full pitcher — I just had an amount of beer. That must be why you feel totally fine the next morning. You may have had quite a bit of that pitcher, but you definitely didn’t have all of it. Which means it was definitely less than five or six beers. Obviously.
Call people fun nicknames. One of my friends now get’s called “terminator” at her bartending job.
Bringing back old ways of revenge.
Getting revenge! Being the bigger person is overrated.
Having a change of heart and deciding revenge isn’t worthwhile. Retire your career of being the smaller person. Circle back to #12 and #13.
Learn balance — in time, substances, and ideally on a beam at your local YMCA.
Read more journalism. Let Ns2c count loosely.
Hit on the hot bartender you’ve been wanting to hit on.
Go home with bartender in #26.
Listen to more Tame Impala.
Starting crazy political arguments with no basis. “Who is the president? Who is this Mr. Trump? Do you guys have any a strong opinion about him?”
*Start absurd political arguments in a French accent. Oui.
John Mulaney. He’s in.
Practice darts.
Enter a dart league. (My mom and her 4th-grade coworkers have one weekly.)
Visit a fortune teller. Prioritize the ones holding serpents, they seem more legit.
Learn to maintain swag after throwing up.
Learn to maintain swag after doing something embarrassing. Remember that no one’s watching. You’re just someone else’s NPC.
Sit back and enjoying the music. If you only take one of these into practice, let this be the one. 2026 is the year of sitting back and enjoying the music. Request a song when you feel like it, but be patient (#14). Life’s good, but none of us make it out alive so don’t take it too seriously! Sit back and enjoy the music with some good buddies.
Happy 2026! Cheers to another year.
P.S., here’s one last optional reso….
37. Steal ideas from your super funny friends and put them on your blog. (I do this every year, so 2026 will be no different.) I wouldn’t be nearly as funny or cool without my funny and cool friends. You guys make Ns2c go round! Especially Noah and Ava for this post.
