The New Year arrives the way it always does: a date change. A fresh page. A familiar temptation to believe that simply making it this far means we must be doing something right.
But the calendar does not absolve or forgive or reset anything. It only counts forward, clicking off days for all of us, whether we notice or not. Jan. 1 does not change who we are unless we decide to.
We enter each new year carrying exactly what we carried in the old one: old habits, including that of our attention, our ways of believing, and our willingness to notice what confirms us — and what doesn’t.
We talk a lot about resolutions this time of year. Eat better. Exercise more. Be kinder. All worthwhile. But there may be a deeper opportunity available to us now, especially in an age of artificial intelligence, 24-hour news, and algorithms designed to shape what we see and think.
That opportunity is our attention. Minding our minds may be the most important work of all:
What we notice.
What we excuse.
What we normalize.
What we choose to ignore because challenging ideas take effort and cause discomfort.
Over time, as a culture and as individuals, we’ve built castles of belief. Inside them live the ideas that feel safe and familiar about faith, politics, identity, and who we believe ourselves to be.
Around those castles are protective moats, filled with news, opinions, and inputs we choose.
And these days, I believe tragically, the ever-increasing algorithms that choose for us.
Our screens help dig those moats. Social media, streaming platforms, and even the opinion pages you’re reading now reinforce what we already believe. What challenges us is often skipped, filtered out, or quietly ignored. Over time, belief hardens into certainty, and certainty becomes identity. When belief becomes identity, truth becomes a threat.
We’re loath to ask the harder question:
“What am I protecting right now that might be wrong?”
When contrary ideas finally break through, they feel uncomfortable. We scroll past. Change the channel. Skip that Wednesday or Sunday Signal column. We retreat deeper into the castle, protected by familiar narratives.
This is easy to see in others. Harder to admit in ourselves. But we all do it. On the right and the left, certainty can become shelter. Being nailed down in what we believe feels safe, even when it keeps us from seeing clearly.
Yet something remarkable happens when we lower the attention drawbridge, even briefly.
New ideas don’t erase our values; they sharpen them. Curiosity adds scope and strength. Listening with due consideration builds confidence and mental muscle.
Choosing not to look away isn’t about abandoning flag-waving conviction. It’s about staying awake to realities in the world.
Clarity about our wide world will never come from constant affirmation and echo chambers, but from thoughtful exposure to what lies beyond those walls and moats we’re so naturally inclined to build.
The New Year will bring plenty of noise … you know the drill. Lots of slogans, speeches, spectacles, with leaders decreeing their certainties at high volume.
Algorithms will make sure we’re exposed to what the data centers think we need.
Attention, however, still, at least for now, is ours to give and direct.
So, if this year calls for any resolutions, I think a great one would be to open the gates of our attention. To lower the drawbridges over our mind-moats and look far and wide beyond. To consider ideas from all sides, from all over the world, and from all the varied voices here in The Signal’s pages.
To resolve to choose curiosity over reflex and engagement over retreat.
Because when we stop looking away, we don’t just see more clearly. We grow. We might even grow closer together.
Gary Horton is chairman of the College of the Canyons Foundation board. His “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
