2015 was not the greatest year.

Given my predilection to not have a large number of close friends in real life, I don’t have a large sample size of people from whom I can gather data about this past year. However, the fact that my larger corner of the Internet (the people I follow on Twitter, Tumblr, and WordPress) also seemed to reblog and post regularly about how bad 2015 was, I’m going to say that I’m not alone.

In retrospect, I definitely let 2015 end up as the “not great” year it was. I didn’t make intentional choices to make it bad, but let’s just say that I wasn’t very active in making it good, either.

With this in mind — and after having just read this eye-opening article on Quartz — here are my top two resolutions for 2016:

1. Be more present.

Although more and more of my interactions with others now occur online or through other technology-based mediums, I feel like I can do more to be present in my family and friends’ lives. I’m not the best at maintaining long-distance relationships, or generally any not face-to-face relationships with people, and I’d like to work on this.

Whether this is simply by maintaining a more consistent conversation with friends over non-verbal mediums or making more time to see people, I know I can and should be doing more — especially when I realize that I’ll be leaving the proximity of friends on a college campus in less than six months.

2. Achieve a better work-life balance

The woman in the photo isn’t me, and it’s generally safe to say that it wouldn’t be me. I’m not the type to go out and enjoy a massive (the most massive?) party of the year because I always think I could be doing something more productive whether it be working on a long-term project, reading, or just anything that seems more “intellectual.”

But after a year of pushing aside time with friends in favor of completing work, I’ve begun to realize that my work-life balance isn’t exactly, well — balanced. I’m not saying that I want to attend a huge party, but I also don’t want to say that that woman would never be me.

On occasion, I want to be that woman, and I don’t want it to be a huge shock when I am.

Here’s to a better year, and many happy returns.