You say you want a Resolution

Five ideas for change in 2025

Me answering some nice people’s questions, asking them nothing in return

I was a guest on the Sharesies “Shared Lunch” podcast last week (episode drops January 13). I LOVE being interviewed. People ask you things and then you tell them the answer like you know what you’re talking about, then no matter how stupid an answer you gave they just go ahead and ask you another question like you nailed it. It’s the best form of conversation. You don’t have to ask them anything!

You can really get into trouble too. At one stage we were talking about enjoying life while you can rather than waiting for some future moment to spend your money/travel the world/eat that marshmallow.

“Yeah,” I said. “You spend your whole life saying I’ll do this ‘one day’, then suddenly you lose somebody close to you and you realise that one day might never-”

Hang on a second. I hadn’t lost anybody close to me recently. Whose story was I telling?

“Sorry Garth” I said. “I might start that answer again …”

Thank goodness it wasn’t live radio. Please, nobody let me go on live radio.

Anyways at one stage host Garth asked “do you have any new year’s resolutions?” and like a tool I replied breezily “not really Garth, I think if you want to change something about your life you should do it there and then, not wait until the first of January”.

Thanks Jesse, sounds relatable! Please tell me more about your perfect life. And please let me know if there are any other podcast episodes you’ve been on so that I can avoid them.

As I biked home I realised there are lots of things I’d like to change about the way I live my life. If only the podcast producer had supplied me with that question beforehand so that I could have thought about an answer in advance.*

So today I’m having another bite at answering that question. Please enjoy these five new year’s resolutions, in no particular order, written by me in the second person so it sounds like you’re the one with the problem. You’re welcome!!

*he definitely did this

Resolution One: Keep your phone plugged into the wall when you’re at home

You are not banned from looking at your phone, but if you want to do it you’ll need to get up and go over to the other side of the room. This is a Cal Newport suggestion and comes as part of a whole framework of ideas to minimise and be more deliberate over your digital life, but I think it’s the easiest one to start today. Related is his suggestion to “make your phone boring”. Make it more like the iPhone Steve Jobs promised us in 2007: a device for searching the internet and getting directions, not an entertainment console and constant companion that bleets at you if you don’t use it frequently enough.

Resolution Two: Commit to reading one hundred ten pages of your book each day

I got this off a guy online who I emailed my producer about but now can’t seem to find (thanks a lot, Google Gemini). For non-retirees, 100 pages a day seems excessive but I quite like the idea of a minimum number even if it’s substantially smaller. The author Zadie Smith tells us that she uses a novel like we use a smartphone - even if she has a few seconds, say, waiting for a pedestrian signal, she’ll take it out and start reading. I’m wary of telling you to walk around town with A Little Life in your back pocket but if you knew it was the only way to get through the ten pages you’d committed to reading, maybe you’d eventually come up with that solution yourself.

Resolution Three: Turn real life conversations up by 20 per cent

I don’t know if other people are like this but in most day-to-day interactions I find myself waiting to get away. It’s not that the people at the supermarket/school drop-off/staff kitchen aren’t bright, interesting and lovable. It’s that, I think, modern life hard-wires us to wrap it up and keep moving. My conversation with David Brooks about his book “How to Know a Person” reminded me that these dozens of daily fleeting interactions aren’t interruptions to real life; they are real life. I’m suggesting turning up the volume by 20 per cent because most people practically can’t just stand there waiting for every conversation to run its course. But I like the idea that, in the moment I’m about to step away, I instead ask them an interesting question like “so what are you enjoying most outside of work right now?”. I think decent conversations are intrinsically valuable - it’s good for humans to talk to humans - but also useful. You don’t know what interesting things you may have missed until you hear them.

Resolution Four: Remember the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect

I didn’t know this thing had a name until I looked it up on Chat GPT just now trying to work out where I first heard about it (the author Michael Crichton, apparently). It goes like this (pasting GPT because it’s good at succinctly summarising ideas):

Imagine you’re reading the newspaper and come across an article on a subject you know very well—your own profession, a hobby you’re an expert in, or a specialized field you’ve studied deeply. You quickly notice that the journalist’s understanding and reporting are riddled with inaccuracies, oversimplifications, and errors. You realize that the coverage is badly flawed in an area where you have authoritative knowledge.

However, you then turn the page and read an article about some other topic—maybe foreign affairs, economics, or science—something you don’t know much about. Without a second thought, you trust that coverage, forgetting the incompetence demonstrated just a moment ago. The “Gell-Mann Amnesia effect” is meant as a cautionary observation: if the press repeatedly gets wrong the things you do know intimately, it’s wise to be skeptical and critical about their accuracy on everything else. It’s a reminder not to give undue credence to media authority just because it seems credible outside your own expertise.

You don’t need to be an astrophysicist to notice this effect. You can just be a New Zealander, reading about New Zealand Covid lockdowns in the foreign press. Or a regular listener of Joe Rogan, reading a description of his podcast on a liberal website. These are political examples but this isn’t about political bias. I remember reading Bill Bryson’s book on the English language and coming across a page where he talked about Scrabble, a game I know intimately (long story; not worth it). If he genuinely thinks there are as many Q tiles in the Scrabble bag as there are E tiles, I thought to myself, can I trust what he has to say about the Appalachian mountains?

(ps I LOVE Bill Bryson)

Resolution Five: Find another way to read Substack newsletters

I’m writing this in bed, at the beach, listening to the waves crash against the shore. But where are you reading it? Would you send me a photo? You don’t have to be in the photo (this isn’t an OnlyFans situation), just take a pic from your perspective (what used to be called a POV before people started using POV wrong).

I think about what it’s like for me when a Substack I enjoy arrives in my inbox. If it takes 15 minutes to read, my wife is going to see me staring at my phone for 15 minutes and I’m going to feel obligated to tell her that I’m reading not scrolling (this makes married life sound grim but it’s actually really fun, hi babe!) - and that’s only if I have those 15 minutes to spare. I have ten pages of Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg to read today, why am I poring over Dylan Cleaver’s recap of the third cricket test?? For all of these reasons I tend instead to quickly skim even my favourite writers. It’s no way to live.

Half of these Substacks are telling me to get off my phone. But how else am I going to read them? Any ideas? Am I asking someone to invent the newspaper?

Please don’t tell me I have to purchase a Kindle.

But do reply to this newsletter with a photo of you reading it! I might share it, but I’ll only use your first name if I do.