×

Residents set resolutions, reflect on previous goals

New Year’s Resolutions often come as a tradition simply to make a change in a new coming year, in this year’s case, coming into a new decade. Many resolutions are set for fitness goals to exercise more, eat healthier foods, drink less caffeine and even to lose weight, but others can come in the form of reaching for higher powers and internal change.

Each resolution is personal to the people who make them either annually or when they see fit.

Williamsport local Spencer Sweeting sees resolutions as a commitment that reaches for the “betterment of yourself and others.” He added that he makes the same resolution each year.

“My resolution is to act justly, love mercily and walk humbly,” he said. “Every year I just hope to embody it a little bit more.”

Though Sweeting has struggled with his resolution in the past, his goal is to peel back the layers to make a step towards success for 2020, not only through his own goals but his hopes for the new year in the city.

“I am excited about the leadership of our city moving forward,” he added. “Civic leadership is really hard and you can’t make everyone happy. I pray that we have local leadership that has integrity and actively seeks the good of our community above themselves.”

Much like Sweeting, Jasmyn Kares, of Elizabethville, who was traveling into town for the Blues Bash, has had successes with past resolutions of losing weight, but is working to learn more and seek new experiences in the new year.

“A lot of mine (resolutions) are very spiritual and deep,” she said. “They are not tangible. You can’t see them with the naked eye.”

She added that some of her resolutions include “to learn to be more forgiving, to be kinder, to see other people and put myself in their place”.

“It’s something more internal,” she said.

She also hopes to use her own “gifts” to dive into new experiences by taking tarot card lessons to learn how to be a card reader in 2020.

Stuart Nicoll, of Mifflinburg, has made resolutions and goals to eat healthier and exercise more in the past but said that many of his goals were not successful after the first month of the new year.

But much like Kares, he has hopes for a better year ahead in 2020.

“I hope for people showing more respect for each other,” he said.

Other locals like Xiyue Yang, a senior commercial design student at Lycoming College, does not make resolutions but continues to set goals for herself.

“I know roughly that I need to achieve a certain goal and what I need to do,” she said.

She added that her goals are career driven as she is about to graduate and is looking for a steady job to support herself.

Local veteran Joe Baier also has hopes to “get back” to being financially stable in the new year, as well as maintaining a more positive path in life.

“I am in recovery for alcohol,” he said. “I want to journey on a different path to maintain sobriety.”

He added that he thinks resolutions can be a positive thing but that sometimes he sets his goals too high.

“This time I will be sober doing it,” he said. “I would set them too high and jump to them and get frustrated. It is all about the little steps. No success comes without failure.”

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today