When young people tell me they want to be reporters when they grow up, I ask: “Do you worry a lot?” If they answer yes, it’s a good sign. To worry is to care. And journalists must care about the communities they cover.

Tomorrow, many of you will make New Year’s resolutions. Behind every resolution is a worry. This year, I’m making a list of “inverse resolutions.” In other words, a list of the things I will no longer worry about, including:

Finding a job.

Two months ago, I did a writing workshop at Cooper Elementary School in North Spokane. Mike Cosgrove is the principal there. Mike and I went through grade school and high school together. I asked him the question I ask every boomer born in the 1950s: “When you were in college, did you ever think you’d find a job in your career?” He gave me the usual answer: “No.”

The reasons? Well, there were so dang many of us competing for every morsel of job. In the mid-to-late 1950s, more than 4 million boomers were born each year. In 1957, the birth rate – 25.3 children per 1,000 population – was the highest it had ever been, and it has never come close since.

So when we mid-1950s-born boomers got out of college in the mid-1970s, we glutted the job market. The unemployment rate reached 8.5 percent in 1975. (It’s 4.5 percent now.)

Boomer women also entered the job market en masse for the first time in U.S. history and though this was a great cultural advance, it added to the we’ll-never-find-a-job stress.

But now we 1950s-born boomers will enter older age with plenty of job opportunities, especially if we’re willing to learn new skills or downsize our ambitions.

The reasons? Labor shortages are coming soon. A group of economic growth advocates recently met with our editorial board. They told us that 45 percent of dentists will retire within a decade. Dentists aren’t the only ones. Physicians, nurses, engineers – write in your profession here – are all expected to leave the workforce in record numbers in the coming decade. We boomers who fretted about ever working in “real” jobs might be able to work to the grave.

Dying from a sensationalized illness.

Time magazine had an excellent cover story recently on why we worry about all the wrong things. Mad cow disease and bird flu have killed exactly zero people in the United States so far, while motor vehicle and motorcycle accidents kill more than 48,000 people in a given year.

But the article did alert me to a new worry and resolution for 2007: I will no longer drive while yakking on the cell phone. Driving under the influence of chatting is nearly as dangerous as driving drunk.

Not hanging out at MySpace or YouTube.

These are places where people meet, chat and show off videos in cyber space. I blog and use the Internet, but I have always preferred in-person meetings and telephone conversations. And I sometimes miss writing letters. The other day, while putting Christmas ornaments away, I came upon a box of letters friends and I exchanged in our college years. Long, handwritten letters. They seemed as antiquated as rotary dial phones.

I’ve felt guilty about not exploring more in MySpace and YouTube. No more. When I heard that my introverted goddaughter Kallie was salsa dancing, I realized that the pendulum is swinging back. Dancing reality shows are hot hot hot. Coincidence? Nope. People are craving physical contact.

The death of newspapers.

When I got into the journalism biz in January 1979, experts warned that newspapers would be dead within five years. Yet many are still standing. And some make handsome profits. Now blogs are on the death watch.

Well, if newspapers and blogs die, we journalists can always study dentistry. Now that would be something to worry about. Happy New Year!