As Winter Break draws to a close and Winter Term resumes, members of the Andover community shared how they plan on tackling the New Year through their resolutions. This week, The Phillipian asked students and faculty members about their resolutions for 2023, receiving diverse responses and unique perspectives on this widely held tradition.
Kashvi Ramani ’24
“My New Year’s resolution is to allot more time for myself. I chose this resolution because last year I spent a lot more time doing things for other people and doing things for my schoolwork, and I didn’t really leave some time for myself. Especially being new to campus, I felt like I had to socialize all the time, but I think time to myself is definitely what I need this new year.”
Rev. Gina Finocchiaro
“I’m not someone who makes New Year’s resolutions, but I do like to think about a guiding principle or word that’s going to guide me into the year… For me this year, it’s “dream,” so that’ll be the word that challenges me and encourages and motivates me to think about how I am and how I am in the world this year. It makes me think about all kinds of layers of my life and the work that I do. It makes me think about relationships in my life, it makes me think about places and communities that I live in like this one, and it makes me think about how to encourage others to dream and find the courage.”
Jaceil Britton ’25
“My New Year’s resolution is to be more supportive of other people’s successes. If you put out that good energy and you’re happy for everyone and just overall grateful you’re gonna be a happier person in general… It’s a lot easier to be nice to people than go out of your way and be mean.”
Avery Rodeheffer ’25
“I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions because they’re often not set up in a way where you can actually execute them. For example, they’ll be a very broad statement… I think setting intentions is a better idea. My coach for GVH (Girls Varsity Hockey) sent an article talking about using a word to ground you during the year. This woman talked about her word for 2022: ‘grow.’ In every situation that year she thought about how she could grow from it. Her word for 2023 is ‘now,’ so she’s going to try to live in the moment.”
Emily Turnbull ’24
“The less serious one is to drink more water because I’m chronically dehydrated, but the serious one is to be more intentional with my time, to waste less time on social media and endlessly scrolling. I have a free period this term so I wanna use that to train and get ahead on my work and work towards my goals.”
Micheal Kawooya ’26
“My New Year’s resolution is to manage my time better. I think it’s not that my time management was bad, it’s just that sometimes it could be better. There’s always room for improvement. I think that instead of doing all my work on Sunday I could spread it out over the weekend… I think that I write myself a lot of reminders and stuff like that to really structure my day and make lists and to-do lists and stuff like that.”
