Redefining Resolutions

Riley stared at her reflection in the gym's mirrored wall, sweat dripping down her face at 5:30 AM on December 31st. The gym was nearly empty this early on New Year's Eve, with just a few other resolution chasers scattered around the equipment. Riley's resolution list, creased and worn from being folded and unfolded countless times throughout the year, lay open on her phone:

2024 NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

1. Run a marathon ❌

2. Learn French (conversational level) ❌

3. Master basic piano ❌

4. Read 24 books (18/24) ❌

5. Learn to cook 50 new recipes (43/50) ❌

6. Complete a 200-hour yoga certification ❌

7. Write a novel (current count: 25,000/80,000 words) ❌

Below these were the smaller resolutions she'd actually managed to complete: wake up earlier, be more organized, reduce screen time, travel a lot, rearrange her closet, and learn to make the perfect latte.

"Somehow the easy ones don't feel like much of a victory right now," she muttered, adjusting her running shoes. Her best friends, Mia and Diana, would be meeting her at 6 AM. They'd spent last night planning this insane final push – one last attempt to tick off as many resolutions as possible before midnight.

The gym door chimed as Mia burst in, carrying three enormous duffel bags. "Okay, I've got everything: Your keyboard, French textbooks, laptop for writing, recipe ingredients for the staff kitchen, yoga mat, a copy of War and Peace and Jane Eyre, and enough energy drinks to give an elephant a heart attack." 

Diana followed, already scrolling through her phone. "I've mapped out our schedule. We're starting with the marathon because it's the most physically demanding. I've plotted a course on the treadmill that simulates the Boston Marathon terrain."

"You guys are crazy," Riley said, but she was smiling. "We really think we can do all this in eighteen hours?"

"We already divided up the coaching duties," Mia said. "I'm handling the creative stuff – writing, reading, and piano. Diana’s got the physical challenges – marathon training and yoga. We'll tag-team the French lessons and cooking."

"And don't forget," Diana added, "We've got the party at Chris’s place at midnight. Consider it your deadline."

“Hey!” an employee of the gym walks over. “What are you guys doing with stuff?” 

“Oh hi, Andrew!” Diana said unphased. “We have a small list of things we want to complete before midnight and need to do them here. Is that alright?”

“Um, it's not alright. Can’t you do that at home… I mean you have a piano in here.” Andrew replied.

Diana put her bags down and walked over to him. “Look, I have been a loyal member of this club for three years. I promise we won’t be a distraction and we’ll keep to ourselves. No one is even here anyway. So please just let us do a few activities here… this is very important to us.”

Andrew sighed. “Okay, just try and stay quiet.”

Riley stepped onto the treadmill while her friends set up their command center on nearby bikes. "Before we start," Mia said, "let's recap what we actually accomplished this year. Diana?"

Diana, ever the organized one, pulled out her list. "I finally got my personal trainer certification, hiked twenty mountains, and started my own cooking blog. Plus the small stuff – daily meditation, cutting out soda, calling my mom every day."

"I finished my novel," Mia added proudly, "took tennis lessons and got that promotion at work. But I totally failed at learning Spanish and building a workout routine."

Riley started jogging as her friends spoke. "At least you guys accomplished your big goals. All I managed was learning to make oat milk lattes and organizing my sock drawer."

"Hey, those were on your list too," Diana reminded her. "They count."

The morning hours blurred together as Riley ran, her friends taking turns reading French vocabulary and playing piano scales through headphones. By 9 AM, she had covered fourteen miles, memorized basic French greetings, and could play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star with minimal mistakes.

They relocated to the staff kitchen during her recovery breaks, where Mia supervised as Riley simultaneously speed-cooked seven recipes from her list: homemade sourdough, chili, chicken pot pie, strawberry macaroons, quiche lorraine, cheesecake, and a complicated French soup she could barely pronounce.

"Your form is all wrong," Diana critiqued as Riley attempted yoga poses between stirring the soup. "Your warrior pose looks more like a wounded penguin."

Andrew came into the kitchen. “What are you guys doing in here!” he said, stunned. 

“We needed to learn a few recipes, please, please we’ll clean up our mess afterwards just let us use the kitchen for a little longer.” Diana pleaded.

Andrew sighed again. “Fine, just let me make my coffee and I’ll be out of here.” 

“Thank you so much!” Diana exclaimed.

"Merci beaucoup, je suis un pingouin blessé," Riley replied in shaky French, making both her friends laugh.

The afternoon found them huddled in their newfound territory in the corner of the gym kitchen. Riley gently mixing the cheesecake batter, burning her tongue tasting soup, while simultaneously typing her novel on a laptop with a little sauce splattered on it. Her word count crawled up: 30,000... 35,000... 40,000.

"How many books do you have left to read?" Mia asked around 12 PM.

"Six," Riley groaned. "And they're not exactly short ones."

"I can read them to you, that counts… right?" Diana suggested. 

By 3, Mia was creating a French quiz, Riley was learning Jingle Bells on the piano, and Diana was reading the end of War and Peace. Their timer buzzed, and their sourdough was done. They all stopped and looked over at the timer. Riley stood up, put cooking mitts, and pulled the bread out of the oven. Mia and Diana followed, both crossing their fingers. “Now we have to let the bread cool on a cooling rack for 1-2 hours before slicing,” Mia said reading an online recipe. 

“In the meantime, I should run the rest of my marathon, how many miles do I have left,” Riley asked.

“Ten,” Diana said with a concerned face.

Riley groaned and the three headed back to the treadmill. By 5 PM, Riley's body was screaming. She'd covered twenty-three miles total, written 50,000 words, cooked seven new recipes, completed countless yoga poses, sorta knows the concept of War and Peace, and her French was... well, still terrible. The piano playing remained firmly at the beginner level.

She sat on a yoga mat, surrounded by the debris of their day: empty protein shake bottles, French flash cards, books, sheet music, and laptop cables everywhere. Riley plopped down against the wall in total exhaustion, and in a moment of silence, everything crashed down on her.

Mia took one look at Riley's face and dropped the books, sliding down to sit beside her on the mat.

"I should've known better," Riley whispered, tears welling up. "This whole thing was stupid. Who tries to cram a year's worth of goals into one day? I'm nowhere near a marathon runner, or a writer, or a French speaker. I'm just... tired."

"Hey," Mia said softly, "Remember this summer when I asked you to help me learn tennis? We started going to the courts three times a week. Then it became two sessions, then down to one because I was getting so frustrated. Or last year, when I wanted to learn Spanish by watching telenovelas for fourteen hours straight. Ended up with a migraine and could only remember how to say 'my evil twin stole my husband.'"

Riley couldn't help but laugh through her tears.

"You know what's messed up?" Mia continued, absently shuffling the scattered French flashcards. "This whole New Year's resolution thing. Like, who decided that it's some magical deadline when that ball drops, as if the universe has some cosmic deadline for personal growth."

Diana walked in, eating a slice of sourdough bread, catching the end of Mia's words. "Oh god, are we finally admitting these annual torture sessions are ridiculous?" Diana sat on the other side of Riley.

"Think about it," Mia said, warming to her theme. "Tomorrow is literally just another day. The sun's going to rise, the world keeps spinning whether you ran that marathon today or tomorrow, or next month."

"But I failed," Riley protested weakly. “I had a whole year to do these things. And I only wrote these down because I’m not good at anything really. Yes, I can play tennis, but I grew up doing that, it's different. It's just that another year went by and I failed.”

"Failed what?" Diana said. "Failed some arbitrary timeline that the people say you need to do these obscure things? And I’m sorry, but you accomplished a lot this year. I mean, you moved into your new apartment, you have a huge job, you also teach tennis lessons, we volunteered for those animal organizations, we traveled to so many new places, we hiked some beautiful mountains together, and that's just to name a few.” 

“Banff was pretty cool,” Riley said with a smirk.

Diana gave Riley a piece of sourdough. “And you just made the best bread ever.” She said with her mouth full.

"You've spent twelve hours today working toward your goals," Mia pointed out. "That's not failure. That's showing up. And you can show up tomorrow too. And the next day. That's how real change happens – not in these crazy marathon sessions, but in showing up day after day."

"So what about all these things I wanted to accomplish this year?" Riley gestured at her crumpled resolution list.

"You know what?" Mia grabbed the list and turned it over. "Let's rewrite these. Not as New Year's resolutions, but as life goals.Things you want to work toward because you want to do them."

Riley looked at her friends, then at her list, then at the clock showing 8:45 PM. For the first time all day, she felt truly relaxed.

"So what you're saying is... we can just stop? Go to the party and not feel like failures?"

"We can stop this crazy end-of-year sprint," Mia corrected. "But we're not giving up on the goals. We're just giving them the time and respect they deserve."

"You know what, you guys are right," Riley said, standing up and brushing off her yoga pants, "Can we stop by my place before the party? I want to grab my old planning journal."

The three friends spent the next hour at Riley's apartment, sprawled across her living room floor with hot chocolate. The three made goals for themselves and some that they would do together. They wrote new, old, small, and big goals into a fresh notebook. And not just any goals. Goals that were important to them. Goals that would better them. Goals that they were interested in and passionate about. Goals that they would enjoy working at and feel good achieving. They got out the crayons and markers and filled the pages with colors and drawings. On the next page, they made plans and came up with ways to get their wildest dreams. 

"Look," Diana said, sketching out a gym schedule, "If we start with 5K runs three times a week, we could build up to a marathon by summer. The Cherry Blossom Marathon in July is supposed to be beautiful.”

"And I know this amazing pilates teacher who does daily classes," Riley added, already pulling up the website on her phone. "She has a beginners program that starts in a week."

“But guys, what about the most important one?” Mia pointed at their list. “What is our screenplay going to be about?”

“Oh, how about a group of friends that live in New York City and it's about them being young and doing crazy things together?” Diana asked.

“I can’t tell if you're being sarcastic or not?” Mia said.

Riley found herself getting excited again but for different reasons. Instead of the frantic pressure she'd felt all day, this felt... sustainable. Real.

By the time they arrived at Chris’s New Year's party just before eleven, Riley had a new plan – or rather, several small, manageable plans. Her original resolution list was still in her pocket, but it no longer felt like a weight dragging her down. 

The party was in full swing, music pulsing through the apartment. Their other friends greeted them with hugs and questions about their day, having heard about the resolution chase.

"So did you do it?" their friend Chris asked. "Did you become a marathon-running, French-speaking, piano-playing, author in one day?"

Riley laughed. "Not exactly. But I did learn enough French to order coffee badly, can play the world's slowest version of My Heart Will Go On, and ran farther than I ever have before so… I can’t really feel my legs right now."

"Plus," Mia chimed in, "she made this incredible French soup that actually turned out edible." 

“Don’t even get me started on the sourdough.” Diana joined. “You’re making that again tomorrow.”

As midnight approached, someone turned down the music and started the countdown. Riley stood between her best friends, watching the shiny ball on the TV.

"Ten! Nine! Eight!"

"Hey," Mia whispered, "what are your first non-resolution resolutions?"

"Seven! Six! Five!"

Riley smiled. "To not stress out, overthink, and to appreciate my friends more. Oh, and to drink more water.”

"Four! Three! Two! One!"

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

The room erupted in cheers and hugs. Someone turned the music back up, and the celebration continued.

The next morning, Riley woke up deep into the morning. Her body was sore from yesterday's efforts, but it was a good kind of sore. On her bedside table, her new journal lay open to the first page, where she'd written in bold letters: "Things I Want to Work Towards."

Her phone buzzed with a group text from Mia: "Meet for breakfast? Let's get bagels. I have some ideas for a screenplay!"

Diana: "I mapped a nice route through the park. Two miles (walking), lots of photo ops, zero pressure Riley if your legs aren’t working. I would be surprised if they were."

Riley smiled as she got out of bed and started changing into her workout clothes. She caught her reflection in the mirror – she looked tired but happy, ready to begin again, not because the calendar demanded it, but because she wanted to.

"First official non-resolution day," she texted back. "Let's do this."

As she headed out to meet her friends, Riley realized something: yesterday's crazy resolution sprint hadn't been a complete waste after all. It had taught her what was really important – not the arbitrary deadlines or the pressure to transform overnight, but the journey itself, and the people you choose to share it with.

She found Mia and Diana waiting at the coffee shop, Riley rushing to their table to sit down quicker. They both looked up and grinned as she approached. 

"Good morning, or afternoon?" Diana asked.

Together, they chatted about their normal plans for the week, the party last night, began plotting out their screenplay, and then went on their first walk of the new year – not as a resolution, but as a choice. Not as an ending, but as a beginning. Not as a race to some finish line, but as a journey they'd take one step at a time, supporting each other every mile of the way.

After all, tomorrow will be just another day. And that was exactly what made it perfect.