TRADITIONALLY, THE START OF ANOTHER YEAR is a time for stating our intentions. Many of us want to identify what we need in the pursuit of happiness, what brings meaning to our existence. Resolutions are synonymous with hope, optimism and at least some level of confidence that one has the capacity to achieve what is resolved. Hope springs eternal.

Psychiatrist Victor Frankl survived the Holocaust death camps and lived to write “Man’s Search for Meaning.” In his classic book and lectures he noted that the people who managed to keep going in the death camps had family or friends to live for or creative work of some kind that they hoped to complete some day. Sometimes hope is all we have.

I’ve made New Year’s resolutions every year for many years. I reach my goals most of the time. I tend to do what I say I will do. I’ve chased dreams and caught a few. I’ve won some and lost some. I’ve have adventures. Making resolutions has worked out so well for me that I’m offering, even at this late date, some unsolicited suggestions.

First, resolutions can’t hurt, and they may help. My recommendation is that you should go ahead and make resolutions. Soren Kierkegaard wrote in “Either/Or: A Fragment of Life,” “I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.”

Second, resolutions play a role in our striving for happiness. Choosing goals and activities and attaching meaning leads us toward our bliss. In the film biopic “A Beautiful Mind,” a fictionalized story of Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash, we see his struggle to find meaning and overcome mental illness. At one point when Nash, played by Russell Crowe, is paralyzed by depression, his wife Alicia, portrayed by Jennifer Connelly, rails, “It’s called life. Activities. Add meaning.”

Third, the better side of wisdom is not announcing one’s intentions too publicly, and especially not to the naysayers in your life. Long ago I resolved not to share my dreams with the folks who former Vice President Spiro Agnew so aptly called the “nattering nabobs of negativity.” I believe he referred then to the news media — but the point to remember is, do not let anyone tread on your dreams.

Until my ideas are more than wishes, I try hard not to mention them in print or out loud. Sometimes when I can’t help myself, I’m met with the kind of yawning and shifting body language that tells me I’m committing the cardinal sin of being boring. It’s just not that interesting to hear about someone else’s plans in progress. I simply avoid talking about the writing I do in my free time.

Let’s be honest. There’s a reason for the saying that talk is cheap. No one cares until there’s an outcome, an award, a column, an article, a book contract, a book. Mostly, people are interested in themselves.

If it were easy to reach goals, we wouldn’t need the game of making resolutions. It’s human nature to love distractions and I’m including myself. However, whenever I think about acting on something I’ve resolved to do, the tendency to procrastinate takes my hand and walks me around my house and yard. The next thing I know dishes are washed, closets get cleared, leaves are raked, the car gets washed. How would I ever get these things done if not for avoiding my primary goal? I’m blessed with a clean house and a few accomplished goals.

Perhaps because I live in a small house and ran out of spaces to organize, some of the resolutions I made a year ago came true. I finished the first draft of a writing project, kept my weight down and stayed employed. There were failures, too — stories that didn’t get written and pounds that found their way back home.

Did the successes arise from hard work and tenacity, as my son suggested? Possibly, but there’s another factor. I made friends with procrastination. Here she comes, I said to myself, and opened the door. When diversions drew me from one activity to another I circled back to the goal I meant to pursue. My house got clean, pages were written, resolutions reached. Happiness ensued.

What are my New Year’s resolutions for the coming year? I plan to carry on. I’m grateful for friends and family, a full-time job, the time to work on writing projects and the chance to spend the rest of my time living my life as I please. In the film “Finding Nemo,” Dory is the fish with attention deficit disorder, voiced by Ellen Degeneres. She has this advice about how to get where you want to go: “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim. Ho ho ho ho!”

Kristine Mietzner organizes writing workshops and leads writing groups when she’s not out walking her golden retriever Max. “The Tideline” appears regularly in The Herald. She can be reached at kristine2770@yahoo.com.