New Year, new you?

Wandering around the Valley Mall, the Home Depot and Jiffy Lube on Sullivan, a reporter accosted unsuspecting people.

“Do you have a New Year’s resolution?” Many said, “No, I’d only break it.” Another asked, “If I do, do I win a prize?”

No, but a New Year’s resolution can come with a prize; a sense of accomplishment or a moment of clarity that comes with putting priorities in order.

The practice started thousands of years ago with different dates but the same general concept. Babylonians returned borrowed items from the previous year. Romans sought forgiveness from their enemies, and the Chinese cleaned house. Today, Americans are quick to pledge to lose weight or quit smoking.

Kurt and Charlotte Corey had already decided on a resolution and have taken the necessary steps.

“We want to visit friends and family more often,” they said. They live in Port Orchard, Wash., and have friends and family from one end of Washington to the other. They were in Spokane Valley visiting their son and his family for the holidays when we caught up with them at the Valley Mall.

They intend to travel at least twice a month to visit others.

“It’s important to resolve to do what you should be doing anyway,” said Kurt Corey, “The new year is a time to start fresh, make plans and take action.” He added that, “Good intentions without good action ain’t worth a damn.” Visiting others will ensure personal connections continue and is a resolution that friends and family will benefit from as well.

Jeanne Tribbett agrees that it’s about starting fresh.

“It’s a time to clean up, clean out and get with it,” she said.

She considers the new year a great time to get things done, things that she calls “Jeanne Jobs.” Her personal resolution is all about accomplishing things that she hasn’t gotten done yet, which include finishing her son’s state championship scrapbooks. He is a senior at WSU and has plenty of clippings from football and baseball.

“It’s something that no one else can do for you,” she said, “It’s a big project but I don’t just want it in a box.”

She thinks it’s important for her kids to have a finished product to look back on.

Nick Schmitt wants to begin college some time this year and get serious about his career of choice – graphic design – while his friend, Charles Gamache, wants to save money and put his financial priorities in order.

“I have a hard time resisting buying stuff,” Gamache said.

Gamache, 24, owns a new truck, an expensive stereo and gaming system, and a $3,000 pair of diamond studs.

“If I could take it all back … well, I’d take some of it back … it could be in a 401(k) or I could be paying my truck off faster,” he said.

He has a good job and good credit but he wants to cut his monthly bills. He hasn’t bought any big-ticket items for a while and is starting his five-year plan. “Knowing what you want or need to do and taking the steps to do it are totally different things,” he said.

Julie Prafke is newly retired and resolves to journal every day. Five years ago, she and her husband, Aullie, committed to visit their grandkids in Seattle once a month, and that New Year’s resolution has not been broken. “If you don’t make it a plan,” she said, “time passes.”

Jean O’Keeffe and Lonnie Dykes are no strangers to making resolutions. Every year they’ve focused on a word or an idea: health, community, church. Last year it was putting in a fence and another year it was mending old ones via reconciliation. This year it’s to build a duplex on a newly purchased acre in Spokane Valley, where loved ones can live at arms length. O’Keeffe’s mother, Virginia O’Keeffe, will move in when it is complete.

While O’Keeffe and Dykes have always started their new years remembering to “Go in peace to love and serve one another,” the magnitude of that statement became more apparent when Jean O’Keeffe was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005. “It’s been a mixed blessing,” said O’Keeffe, “It’s almost brought a richness to my life. It brought a new level of awareness, a heightened sensitivity to how we wanted to live each day.”

Her disease is slow-growing and may never need treatment but their lives have changed. “We began to re-evaluate our priorities,” said Dykes. They recently sold the house they bought about two years ago and rented a small duplex until theirs is built. They foresee that, eventually, more than one family member will be living with them on their new property.

“Life isn’t just about ourselves,” said Dykes, “but everyone else. What better place is there than with family?”

The couple believes that the new year is a time for a fresh start and opportunities, a time to keep learning, and to be open to change. New Year’s resolutions enable people to take a good hard look at what needs to be changed and make a promise to themselves as well as to others.