A (Belated) New Year's Resolution from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
What two time traveling dudes can teach us about 2025 and beyond
"Be excellent to each other"
Wise words - believe it or not - from Bill and Ted in the 1989 cult classic, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
In all honesty, I never been a huge New Year’s Resolution kind of guy. I think it’s a cool concept and resets, restarts and goal setting are all important aspects of a dynamically moving life. I’ve always felt that we shouldn’t wait for an ascribed date on the calendar to implement these updated versions of ourselves. Life and time are not going to slow down because the calendar says so. Don’t wait. As Rocky Balboa said in Rocky III, “go for it.”
Having said all of that, I’d be less than forthcoming (or “sitting on my throne of lies” a la Elf) if I didn’t admit that I may have done a reset or goal setting exercise myself a time or two on the 1st of January over the past few decades.
So this year I decided to find a way to tie in ‘80s pop culture to New Year’s resolutions. Shocking I know. If you don’t know by now, I am of the belief that any event or situation in our life or work can be defined by a lesson from ‘80s pop culture.
And I always say that the best lessons for life and work will come from the most unexpected of places and people. Bill and Ted are the perfect example of this.
But before we take a look at what these two totally awesome dudes taught us about New Year’s Resolutions, lets jump in their time traveling phone booth and go back to February of 1989.
February 1989
It was February of 1989 and I was attempting to make my way through the 2nd semester of freshman year in college. I already had campus community service for a fireworks battle gone awry and a significant water ballon slingshot mishap so I was laying low. Not really. No not at all. As Ferris Bueller said, “Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive.”
And as the ‘80s tended to do better than any other decade before or since, the pop culture was - in a word - delivering.
The Top 40 in music had something for everyone which is really the best way to define ‘80s music. Something for everyone. Guns N Roses, U2, Tone Loc, Rod Stewart, New Kids on The Block, Joan Jett, Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians and my teenage favorite - Samantha Fox - all had songs on the Top 40 chart.
Television was in its’ sitcom golden years with The Cosby Show, Roseanne, Cheers, and The Golden Girls. Oh and these two shows with absolutely no impact on pop culture (insert sarcasm) - Seinfeld and The Simpsons would both premiere later that year.
Everyone’s favorite Mall bookstore - WaldenBooks - was selling out of books that would later become movies such as A Time to Kill, The Joy Luck Club and a Clear and Present Danger.
And at the theaters people were purchasing their $2 movie tickets to see movies like Rain Man, Twins, The Burbs and Beaches. Honest broker here - I saw Beaches under protest and I’ll just leave it a that. But there was one movie starring a very young Keanu Reeves that not only did well at the box office but also became a cult classic that has stood the test of time. That movie is Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (A Plot Summary)
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter hit theaters on February 17th, 1989. It tells the story of two high school friends who are also bandmates and although they are inquisitive, they are not going to be mistaken for Valedictorians.
They come to a crucial crossroads in their lives that involves their history class. Fail history and Ted (Keanu Reeves) will have to go to military school thus separating the two best friends. Enter Rufus played by an all time great comedian - George Carlin. Rufus is a time traveler from the future who gives our two heroes access to his time traveling machine which comes in the form of a phone booth. You remember those things, right? They use the time traveling phone booth to visit key historical figures including Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan and more with the goal of learning enough to pass their history exam.
It’s a fun, silly and believe it or not, a somewhat educational movie and just like almost every movie in the ‘80s, it ends exactly as we hoped it would. Side note for Hollywood in 2025: I love a healthy dose of cynicism and realism as much as the next person, but it’s not a bad thing to have the hero or the person/people we are cheering for actually win at the end once in a while.
So what did these two totally awesome knuckleheads teach us about New Years’ Resolutions (Belated of course):
”Be excellent to each other.”
We should all take those five simple words to heart as we move into to what is going to be a totally awesome 2025! Better yet, we should incorporate those five words into our daily lives and routines in 2025 and beyond.
Now I know that Larry David’s artificial cutoff for wishing someone a Happy New Year is January 7th and he does have a point. I mean even belated Happy Birthday messages have a cutoff of less than a week. After that it is less belated and more of an “I can’t believe they f’n forget my birthday” a la Samantha Baker in Sixteen Candles.
One of the reasons I waited to publish a New Year’s article until almost three weeks after the official rolling of the calendar, was to remind all of us that resolutions don’t have an expiration date. After the few weeks of the holiday season where everyday blends together and we get lost in some bizarre time warp, it's easy to forget the things we promised ourselves once our lives start up again.
Resolutions designed to better ourselves are always important and those who partake in them should always have at least one that prioritizes you first. But the best resolutions and promises we make to ourselves, should really be about what we can do to make the community around us a better place and perhaps bring some positivity to someone who needs it.
And that someone doesn’t even need to be someone you know. It could just be a smile or hello to a stranger as you pass by on the sidewalk or the grocery store. You never know who might just need that very small human connection right at that moment. In other words, “Be excellent to each other.”
Being excellent means something different to each of us. There are so many ways to do it:
🤙Be excellent in your community by volunteering/advocating for something
🤙Be excellent to your family
🤙Be excellent to your friends
🤙Be excellent to a person in need
🤙Be excellent to an animal in need
🤙Be excellent to a random person each day
🤙Be excellent to your team members
🤙Be excellent at a hobby, passion or interest
🤙Be excellent at what you do
🤙And maybe most importantly, Be excellent to yourself.
Happy (Belated) New Year '80s style!
Be excellent to each other and yourself in 2025!
