What if we approached the New Year in the way a bride approaches her wedding day? We would not have to worry ourselves with well-intentioned New Year resolutions. Instead, we’d simply decide on four things to take into the new year—“something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.”

Most of us are familiar with this traditional English wedding rhyme that dates to the nineteenth century. In its shortened contemporary version (“and a sixpence in her shoe” is seldom used), the rhyme contains the clues to the “four good-luck objects…a bride…