At the end of 2009, my resolution for the coming year was fairly simple. “I want to make my life excellent,” I said to the camera, sitting there well after midnight at an IHOP. At twenty years old, I had a limitless supply of optimism pumping through my veins. I was woefully cocky, endlessly energetic, unceasingly hopeful—and incredibly selfish. I still am, more often than I’d like to be, but I’m working on it.

By definition, New Year’s resolutions are about yourself. According to Wikipedia,...