Ammi Midstokke: Defining the year with defunct words
When you lack religion, rehab, or amnesia, the only way to turn a new leaf is via the New Year’s Resolution. There are a few cantankerous naysayers out there who claim one can resolve to anything at any time, but I suspect they’re just tired of failing.
Never once has one told me on March 11 or July 14 that they have decided to join the gym or drink less or read more.
That is because Jan. 1 is widely accepted as the National Day of New You, when all the things that have kept you from pursuing personal growth or a shapely waistline are forgotten, presumably as a result of the chocolate and Hot Toddies you consumed. Not only that, but we’re allowed to adopt whatever we want from other cultures to support our rebirth.
My friends who celebrate the New Year with lists of goals and a “word of the year” have been telling me that 2026 is the Year of the Horse. Not just that, but the Fire Horse, which is like a normal horse year but better. I haven’t asked if they have to wait until the Chinese New Year, which doesn’t start until Feb. 17, to reap the rewards of this powerful juju.
Meanwhile, I’m just holding out for an Election Badger year.
Whereas I previously have supped of the potent elixir of promise that is the optimism that is the hope that I will accomplish the goals I have laid out in ink, this year, I’m noticing some stark differences. First of all, the word “resolution” has been universally exchanged for “intention.” All my commitments are aspirations. My goals are plans, and they’re written in pencil.
I used to write my resolutions like the President writes executive orders: with ignorance and quick-drying ink. New Years resolutions (which now I’m calling Personal Executive Orders) were responsible for a great many achievements in my life: a few marathons, long stints of sobriety, new careers, the end of bad habits. I would write, “This year I will run a marathon.” And then I would follow a training plan and actually run a whole marathon! It was like waving a magic wand of motivation.
But that was back when I could afford a race bib and discipline was still in my vocabulary. It has since been replaced with four different words for “try.” I figure if our government can strike the language of equality, diversity, gender, LGBTQ+ persons, the environment, the BIPOC population, and any lexicon that lends to accepting or protecting them, it seems reasonable that I loosen my own grip on reality, too.
To that end, I set about trying to find my 2026 word of the year. I used to find noble words like “growth” and “abundance.” This year, when I did a values assessment to find out what really matters to me, all I could derive from it was “inflation” and “health care coverage.” My friends are also opting out of the general “be open to love,” and turning to more specific terminology, like “marry affluent Canadian,” with the affluence being negotiable.
When people are forced to busy themselves surviving, they don’t have time to join the picket lines or come up with lofty ideas of what they’d like to achieve this year. They don’t have time to question the decimation of natural resources, the poisoning of our water, the selling off of national monuments. They are all trying to figure out how to optimize their Costco memberships and keep their kids off hazardous trampolines.
They cannot afford the time to argue about whether the concept of affordability is real. New Years Resolutions might also be a thing of privilege, and no longer accessible to many. But words, stricken from policy or not, are.
Maybe a good word for the year is “resist.”
Or “kindness.”
And if those don’t work, we can try the mid-year method, and switch to “Canadian.”
Ammi Midstokke can be reached at ammim@spokesman.com.