Still Curious: A New Year's Reset (with no resolutions)

Summary

This New Year’s episode of Infectious Dose is not about resolutions, optimism, or self-improvement. It’s about pausing.

In a year marked by exhaustion, misinformation, and ongoing attacks on science and public health, Heather reflects on the value of a reset without expectations — and on why curiosity matters more than hope right now. Drawing on personal experience, scientific training, and the quiet resilience of listeners who keep showing up to learn, this episode offers a steady, grounding space to mark the turn of the year.

If New Year’s feels less like a celebration and more like a breath, this episode is for you.

Listen here or scroll down to read full episode.

Full Episode

2025 was hard. It was not a year that makes you want to write a vision board.

It wasn’t a year that lends itself easily to resolutions — or optimism — or neat little promises about how everything will be better if we just try harder.

Science took hits. Public health took hits. Trust took hits. And a lot of people who care deeply about evidence, curiosity, and protecting one another are ending this year tired. So tonight — or this morning, depending on when you’re listening — I don’t want to talk about goals. I want to talk about a reset. A reset isn’t about becoming better. It’s about letting go of what you were never meant to carry. And I think a lot of us are currently carrying things that don’t belong to us.

Why resolutions feel wrong right now

And right now, for me at least, resolutions just feel wrong. And that's because resolutions assume a few things. They assume stability. They assume control. They assume a fair playing field. And this year didn’t offer much of any of that.

We lived through continued attacks on science and public health. Through misinformation rewarded at scale. Through burnout treated like a personal failure instead of a structural one.

This does not feel like the moment to optimize ourselves. If anything, this feels like the moment to stop pretending we’re apps that just need a better update. For many, including myself, resolutions probably don’t feel motivating at this moment — they feel loud. They feel like pressure layered on top of exhaustion. And if you’ve felt that way, or feel that way, you’re not broken. You’re paying attention.

What science actually does in bad years

One thing I want to remind us — especially right now — is that science doesn’t stop working just because a year is bad. Science is built for uncertainty. It’s built for setbacks. It’s built for moments when the signal is faint and the noise is overwhelming. In hard years, science doesn’t always produce breakthroughs. Sometimes it produces guardrails. Sometimes it produces corrections. Sometimes it quietly prevents something worse from happening. And that kind of progress is harder to see let alone celebrate — but it’s no less real. And this is the part of science most people never see.

The outbreak that didn’t spread because someone caught it early. The hospital ward that didn’t shut down because infection control worked. The trial that quietly showed something didn’t work — saving time, money, and lives later.

In bad years, science often looks like restraint instead of breakthroughs. It looks like people saying, “We don’t know yet,” and meaning it. It looks like revision, and correction, and choosing not to oversell results just to keep attention. None of that makes headlines. But it’s how science protects people when the system is under strain. Science isn’t powered by confidence. It’s powered by persistence.

What a reset actually looks like

A reset doesn’t demand that you improve. It doesn’t ask you to fix everything, or reinvent yourself, or prove that this year will be different. A reset might look like: Lowering expectations instead of raising them. Choosing steadiness over progress. Deciding not to quit, even if you don’t feel inspired.

A reset says: I don’t need to know where this goes yet. I just need to stay.

Still curious

For me, the word I keep coming back to in this moment isn’t hopeful. It’s curious. And I don’t just mean curiosity as a personality trait — or a vibe — or something that sounds nice on a New Year’s Eve episode. I mean curiosity as a discipline.

When I was little, I was the kid who asked too many questions. The ones that irritated people. The why questions. The how do you know that questions. For a long time, that kind of curiosity was treated like something you were supposed to grow out of.

But during my training, my PhD advisor, C.J. Peters, helped me understand something important when things were so tough that curiosity became a luxury: Curiosity isn’t a distraction from science. It’s the engine. He emphasized that asking questions — especially the uncomfortable ones — wasn’t just allowed. It was essential.

Those same questions that annoyed people when I was a kid became powerful when I was training — because science doesn’t move forward on certainty. It moves forward on questions. One of the things I learned during that training is that curiosity isn’t indulgent. It’s not something you only do when things are easy. In fact, the moments when curiosity feels hardest — when answers are slow, when the stakes are high, when fear is loud — are the moments when it matters most.

Curiosity is what keeps science from turning into dogma. It’s what keeps us from mistaking confidence for truth. And it’s why I still believe questions are more powerful than certainty — especially right now. Curiosity doesn’t require optimism. It doesn’t ask you to believe everything will work out. Curiosity just asks you to keep looking. To ask how something actually works. To listen past slogans. To read one more source. To stay open when it would be easier to shut down.

In hard years — especially hard years — curiosity is an act of quiet resistance. It’s how science survives backlash. It’s how learning outlasts fear. Curiosity doesn’t say, everything is fine. It says, I’m not done yet.

Curiosity versus certainty

One of the things that made this year especially heavy was how loud certainty became.

People speak with absolute confidence — about vaccines, about public health, about science — often without evidence, and sometimes in direct opposition to it.

Curiosity is the opposite of that kind of certainty. Curiosity leaves room for data to change your mind. Curiosity knows that confidence is not the same thing as understanding. Science has always moved forward not because we were sure — but because we were willing to be wrong, revise, and try again.

Staying curious doesn’t mean you don’t care about truth. It means you care enough to keep asking for it. And in a year that rewarded loud answers, choosing questions was a quiet kind of courage.

Staying when it would be easier to leave

And now, after survivng this year, many of us don't just feel tired — we felt tempted to disengage. To stop reading. To stop listening. To stop caring. And sometimes stepping back is healthy. But walking away entirely can feel like losing something important.

So I want to remind us that staying doesn’t have to mean burning yourself out. Sometimes staying just means not disappearing. It means choosing curiosity over numbness. Choosing care over apathy.

You don’t have to fight every battle. You just have to not vanish.

Leaving doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like muting the news. Sometimes it looks like not clicking the article. Sometimes it looks like deciding it’s safer not to care. And sometimes that’s a necessary pause. But staying — even quietly — is how values survive hard seasons. Staying might just mean listening. Or learning one thing. Or refusing to let misinformation be the last word. That counts.

And if you’re listening to this right now, I want to talk to you for a moment.

There aren’t many of us here yet. This podcast doesn’t have a massive audience. It doesn’t go viral every week. But you keep coming back. You choose curiosity in a world that rewards certainty and outrage. You stay engaged even when the topics are heavy. You listen when it would be easier to scroll past.

And I want you to know — that matters.

You matter.

Still-curious people are how science survives hard years. You’re the reason this podcast exists at all. And I also want to say this: Thank you for listening. Thank you for giving me your time — especially in a year when attention feels scarce and everything is loud. Thank you for trusting me to walk through complicated science with you, and for coming back even when the conversations are hard.

I don’t take that lightly. I’m really glad you’re here.

If you want to, you can take a moment here and think about what showing up looked like for you this year. It might not look impressive. It might not look like progress. It might look like surviving. Or staying curious when it was hard. Or listening instead of disengaging. Whatever it looks like — it’s yours. And you don’t have to measure it against anyone else’s version of a good year.

A personal reset

And I’ll be honest — this year changed how I think about what it means to keep going. I used to think resilience looked like momentum. Like always moving forward. Now I think it looks quieter. Like pausing. Like reassessing. Like giving yourself permission not to have answers yet. For me, this reset isn’t about ambition. It’s about staying aligned with what I value — even when it’s hard.

Part of that alignment, for me, is modeling something I want my son to see. That when things get uncomfortable, you don’t disappear. You ask better questions. You speak carefully. And you try to be honest — even when the noise makes that hard.

That doesn’t mean always having energy. It just means staying connected to what matters. And if that’s where you are too, you’re not behind. You’re right on time.

I’ll share one small piece of what this reset looks like for me. This was the year I re-launched this podcast. And I won’t pretend that was easy. It was scary at times. It was stressful.And there were moments when staying quiet would have been much simpler. But I kept showing up because I felt compelled to. Because we’re living in a moment where science is confusing, information is loud, and too often, lies are rewarded for being confident.

And I believe — deeply — that helping people understand complicated science, calmly and honestly, still matters. This reset, for me, is about regrounding myself in that mission.

Not proving anything.Not fixing everything.Just continuing to show up and speak clearly in a world that’s screaming. And the fact that you’re here — listening, learning, staying curious — makes that choice worth it.

What we’re carrying forward — and what we’re not

So as we step into a new year, I’m not making resolutions. I’m not promising that things will get easier. What I am doing is choosing what to carry — and what to set down. I’m carrying curiosity. Care. The willingness to ask good questions.

And I’m leaving behind the pressure to fix everything. The idea that optimism is mandatory. The belief that exhaustion means failure. And I'm inviting you to join me.

You don’t owe the new year a better version of yourself. You just owe yourself honesty.

The midnight mantra

And if you’re listening to this before midnight…or right at midnight…or alone on your couch with the lights low…

I want to invite you into a small pause. Not a resolution.Not a promise.Just a quiet moment — and then a mantra. You don’t have to do anything with this. You don’t have to fix anything.

If you’re somewhere safe to do it, let your shoulders drop. Unclench your jaw. Take one slow breath in —and a slower breath out. There’s nothing you need to prepare for the new year right now. You don’t have to decide who you’ll be. Just notice that you’re here.

That you made it to the end of this year. That you’re still listening. That counts.

We can say the mantra to ourselves when the year turns —or whenever we need it. You can say it out loud. Or silently. Or just listen.

Here it is.

Showing up is enough. I don’t have to fix everything tonight. I don’t have to know what comes next. I’m allowed to rest. I’m allowed to reset. And I'm allowed to be curious.

If tonight feels less like a celebration and more like a breath, that’s okay. Go into the new year rested if you can. Curious if you’re able. And kind to yourself when you can’t be either.

Happy New Year. We've got this.