• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, January 5, 2022

Welcome to the new year!  If you are reading this article, we survived another trip around the sun with relatively minimal damage in the grand scheme of things.  If you aren’t reading this article, not to worry, because I am clearly not talking to you. :)

A new year brings with it renewed optimism and fresh challenges.  So let’s dive right in, shall we?  This is the recap of my media-oriented New Year’s resolutions.  After all, if I don’t share them with all of you, how can I even pretend to hold myself accountable?

First and foremost, I want to make sure I and the people around me become more tolerant of other people's ideas, no matter how much we disagree.  This is a big one because the last few years have been chockful of arguments and general anger toward one another when we sit on the opposite side of conversations. 

This has been especially true in the media world, which tends to fuel the debate in favor of page views and circulation increases.  If we can become more tolerant, that will help us find a stronger middle ground that can help us to share our opinions in a less conflict-oriented way.  I was always taught that compromise is the strongest component of any relationship. 

Secondly, I’m going to spend a little less time on social media, and even less time sharing my point of view on social media.  To me, social media should simply be a tool for staying in contact with the people who have been a part of my life -- for friends and family, and not for politics or current events. Not everyone agrees with that take, but that’s the one I have at this point.   Toward the end of 2021, I found less of what was in social media to be of interest to me.  I am going to take that signal and build on it for 2022. 

That brings me to my third resolution: I want to be more understanding of the immediate world around me.  That means taking time to watch the local news, engage in the community where I live, and make sure I am involved in helping to shape that immediate world.  That’s where I can have the most impact --on the lives of my kids and the people I see every day.  That community may be in Austin, where I live, or it may be in the marketing community where I operate.  It does not have to be solely location-based.

Which brings me to the last of my media-oriented resolutions -- probably the simplest, and yet the hardest to maintain.  I need to make time for me.  I probably need to spend more time in the present, engaging with the moment, rather than engaging with media.  I need to be focused on what I can see and experience directly around me rather than wondering what is going on somewhere else.  Doing that, creating a sense of mindfulness, could have a much more positive impact.

Sharing resolutions puts them into the public record, and now it falls on us to hold each other accountable.  So, what are your New Year’s resolutions?