Happy new year! May your 2026 be an improvement over your 2025, whether or not your 2025 was a good year or not. And if you got married, had a kid, and got a promotion last year, well you probably will not have a better year but may it come as close as possible. Last week, my day was on Christmas and I chose mostly to just write what I would normally write. Not so with this post.
For better or worse, I have New Years resolutions. I know. It’s kind of lame. I know that there’s really no reason that the year
changing means I’m going to suddenly behave differently, that I could have done this on any other day, and that if I’m like most people, I won’t actually accomplish these. Before I explain why I’m choosing to participate this year, I will share what they are.
I have decided to be really ambitious this year. I am doing two resolutions that, if you were someone who liked to bet, you would absolutely be right to bet against me. The odds are not in my favor, not even close. Especially when I give you some context.
My first resolution is to read 50 books this year. Short books, long books, nonfiction, science fiction, philosophy, history, crime fiction, a memoir, a biography, a book I can find online for free, a book I was gifted, a book I had to buy, a book I can get from the library. I have about 20 or so books at my house that I have not read yet and I certainly plan to read all of them.
The context for why to bet against me reading 50 books is that I had this resolution last year, but it was 20 books. And I failed miserably. Except I didn’t. I started the year reading a biography of Thomas Jefferson, which I did complete. And then I didn’t read much. At some point, don’t remember when, I started Caliban’s War. I didn’t get very far.
In mid-November, I had to go to the dentist, knew I would have about 30 minutes to kill waiting for my crown to be made and brought Caliban’s War with me. I read what I could then. And then I read more when I got home from work. I read after dinner. I read right before I went to bed. I had to have read at least 100 pages that day. And I thought “I don’t think I can reach 20 at this point, but let’s see how far I get.”
I bought a few books before I had finished Caliban’s War. I bought quite a few books on Black Friday. I kept reading. I had some very short books I could have read to get as close to 20 as possible, but ultimately that takes the fun out of it. And it doesn’t mean anything. What means something is that I keep reading.
So before Christmas, I decided to start this 800 page behemoth of a book called The Age of Federalism and it was not a padded 800 pages. A full page of this book is probably, and I’m not sure this is an exaggeration, 4 pages of Caliban’s War, which also happens to be a bit of an easier read too. I knew I could not reach 20 books. I had already decided on my 50 book goal the next year. I knew if I started the book in the new year, I’m dedicating at least half a month to this book and that’s if I’m very diligent about reading. Worst case is that it dulls my interest in reading.
Luckily, I am kind of a history geek so reading this very well-researched and thorough book detailing American history from 1789 to probably the Jefferson presidency – I am halfway through and The Jay Treaty is being discussed, I don’t know when it ends – has not been difficult for me. But still, it is still going to take me two weeks, I’ll just happen to finish it fairly early into the new year, not January 15 or something.
Anyway point being is that I only read 8 books this past year. I could have read more if I wanted that total to be higher, but I knew there was really no difference between 12 and 8 and that I was still reading constantly, which is the entire point of the exercise.
So why 50? Well to be frank, I thought 20 was a lot when I set that goal, but it’s weirdly low enough that for most of the year, I knew I had time to read 20 books. I mean I read 7.5 books in a month and a half. I am a deadline guy. Most of what I write on this site is after 12 am.
If I have a very high goal, I’ll know I can never stop reading, or only briefly can I stop. And while this makes it sound like I don’t want to read, I do. Every time I go on vacation, I read 3-4 books. My computer is basically why I didn’t read in the past. It’s so much easier to watch a movie or TV show. Or screw around on this site. I realize trying to get to the 20 book goal (even knowing it was fruitless) that I need that high bar.
So will I reach 50 books in 2026? I don’t care. If it causes me to read 20 books, it’s a success. I still want to reach it. I just consider it an unqualified success as a resolution if I read more books than I did in 2025. In that respect, my 2025 resolution of reading 20 books was also a success. I read more books in 2025 than I did in 2024.
On a similar note, I am doing another extremely ambitious resolution for that very same reason. I want to personally complete two screenplays and a novel. I have never written a screenplay or a novel. I have started both before. Why would I simply not just say write one of those if I’ve never done it?
Because the clock is ticking. I need the clock to be ticking. You know how long a year is? People write screenplays in a week. Having to write one of those would just cause me to put it off. It could be August and I could say to myself “I still have time.” But the prospect of writing three makes the prospect of writing one seem very urgent right away.
And to be clear here, I’m not starting from zero here. Part of the reason I picked three was because I do have three ideas here. One original screenplay based on an idea I cannot get out of my head that I’ve wanted to write for 10 years, mostly because I imagined one particular scene in my head that I desperately want to see in a movie and then I crafted the movie to make that scene happen. As it turns out, that scene happens early in the movie, i wonder what happened, and I made wondering what happened the plot of the movie.
Another idea is adapted from a book based on something that really happened, because it sounds like a Coens brother movie. A book I have not yet read, but specifically bought with the idea of writing this screenplay in fact. Lastly, another original idea that is very hard to describe but can be best summed up by I took a particular kind of gummy, was lying in my bed, and I thought I could hear things. I’ll leave it at that.
Same lesson here though. If I merely write one, I’ll consider it an unqualified success. I’m hoping the pressure to write three causes me to work hard on the first one (which I have already started), that I’ll still feel that pressure for two, and that momentum allows me to do all three. And frankly, I hope me making this all public motivates me so that I can be back here in a year and say I did it!
Let’s bring it back to the Cardinals. I cannot make a resolution for the Cardinals, because I have no control over what happens, but I can make wishes.
- I wish that Matthew Liberatore could become a 3 WAR starter
- I wish that Joshua Baez plays well enough in AAA that we see him in the majors this year
- I wish for Tink Hence to throw 100 innings, or whatever upper limit the Cardinals want him to reach
- I wish for Quinn Mathews to establish himself in 2026 to where we mostly trust him heading into next season
- I wish that Masyn Winn takes a step forward with his bat
- I wish Victor Scott can be at least an 85 wRC+ hitter
All of these would be very good indeed for the future of the Cardinals.
