"I'm going to try to stop worrying about everything": the thing I'll do differently in 2023

Over the years, I've learned a few strategies for making New Year's resolutions: keep them simple, tell as few people as possible, and never write them down.

I learned this the hard way. One year, I announced – under pressure during a New Year's Eve party – that I was going to write a play. I've never even opened a new document for this, but I've spent a lot of time worrying about that last item on a long list of things I'll probably never deal with.

This time I'm going to abandon the goal-oriented approach; I'm tired of disappointing myself. I don't want to worry about the promises I made and didn't keep throughout 2023. Instead, I'm going to try to stop doing something: worry.

For me, worry is a major blight on what is an otherwise rather lovely life. Compared to a lot of people, I don't have much to worry about. But worry is as irrational as it is powerful; it dominates my thinking about work, about social commitments, about the stupid day-to-day administration of being a human. I feel a spike in anxiety when the message of the day hits the mat and when I see a new email in my inbox. If I have nothing to worry about, I worry about lack of concern - it must mean I forgot something or owe some form of compensation.

I also tend to carry over failures from the previous year onto the next year's balance sheet, so I always worry about the net effect of things I didn't achieve in 2017. Stacking annual New Year's resolutions seems a bit counterproductive.

Some anxiety is unavoidable and even necessary. Most of my work is done on a deadline, and without the anxiety that a deadline generates, I would probably never finish anything. My professional life consists of one belated assignment after another, and for better or worse, I'm used to it.

In difficult times, worry can even become a form of control. By worrying about my problems, I at least keep them front and center in my thinking. If I'm late for work, I often wake up early to worry about it for an hour or two, and spend the rest of the day pretending that it counts as progress.

But worry in itself solves nothing and brings nothing. Travel anxiety won't prevent a vacation disaster. Worrying about an upcoming meeting doesn't put it off or move it forward; he always arrives on time. Worrying about paperwork is not enough; at some point you have to stop worrying and fill out the forms. Sometimes I feel like my real job is something I rush quickly between extended periods of worry. I would like to quit.

In mid-2023, I will be 60 years old. It's easy to think of this step as just another deadline you don't want to miss. I could probably still be fit at 60, but I think I waited too late to learn Italian. I think it might be easier to wipe the slate clean. It shouldn't be about what I can accomplish 60 years from now, but after.

I'm not sure how to go about it - yet , it's just a goal in search of a strategy. I doubt I can or should eliminate anxiety from my life, but I've managed to limit the amount of time I allow myself to panic: all day before a deadline, not all week before. And as much as I hate to admit it, the worry can sometimes be a bit performative, a show of hand-wringing helplessness for the benefit of my wife and children. From time to time, I forget to worry simply because there is no one to do it in front.

Maybe I'll spend New Year's Eve. New Years to think about the things I've actually managed to get done in the last 12 months and show some gratitude for all the poor results that kind of passed me by in 2022. I could also do more exercise and sleep better, but that feels a bit like resolutions, and I'm all done with them. If nothing else, I'll stop worrying about this piece I never wrote.