Meanwhile, you’re starting a new year and a new semester and, for the moment, you’re more concerned about your gym schedule, course load and grocery budget than you are about the Dow jones industrial average.

OK, this might be a dramatic oversimplification but let’s face facts: There’s a lot to worry about in 2009, and trying to live up to a New Year’s resolution you may have made under the influence of champagne is just one more thing on your mind. In the grand scheme of things, a New Year’s resolution seems trivial at best when we’re facing an all-out economic nightmare, among other problems.

That’s why I’ve given up on any promises to myself of losing 15 pounds, getting a 4.0 or crunching my budget. This year, I simply resolve to be happier instead of trying to be a healthier, penny-pinching super-genius. Here’s why.

In the past, I’ve made resolutions with these visions of a more-perfect me in mind. I’ve written positive affirmations on my bathroom mirror in eyeliner to motivate myself. I’ve kept food diaries, expenditure logs and planners full of color-coordinated due dates, sticky notes and gold stars.

In the long run, I just don’t want to do it.

But after thinking about all of the above and remembering the combined pressure and reluctance associated with maintaining some arbitrary promise to myself, I started thinking about the point of this whole resolution fiasco. In the end, I concluded, we’re all just trying to be happier.

I seriously considered making a real resolution this year. In the past, I’ve actually been so lazy as to make resolutions like, “I resolve to have a resolution next year.”

This is not to say I’ve entirely ditched any hope of improving upon myself.

I’ve just decided to take a different approach by doing things with the lone goal of making myself happier. In my mind, everything else will follow.

For example, my morning routine is a mess. I typically wake up about five minutes before the bus comes, grab clothes off the floor and make a mad dash for the curb. About 50 percent of the time, I make it to the bus stop just in time to jump on and get to work on time. The other 50 percent of the time, I end up missing the bus and walking into work 10 minutes late, which throws off everything and leads to — you guessed it — a very unhappy day.

A simple solution (that isn’t a real resolution) would be to wake up earlier. That would give me time to cook a healthier breakfast in the morning, which will not only help me to save money by eliminating my routine morning run to Sparty’s, but will also eliminate ?the stress of running to catch the bus in a sorry excuse for a well-coordinated outfit every day.

Yes, finding balance in your school life, social life and checkbook might ultimately make you a happier person, but not before the initial stress of trying to live up to those high expectations you set for yourself sets in.

This year is going to be complicated. People are losing their jobs and, to me, now is not the time to be worried about losing a few pounds. Taking the focus off what’s bringing me down and refocusing my energy on that which makes me happier is my resolution for the new year.

I’m feeling better already.