By JUDE RATCLIFF / Staff Contributor
It’s the end of January, which means that just over three weeks ago, millions of people worldwide made promises to themselves regarding substantial changes for the better to their routines and lives. As the first month of 2024 comes to a close, many of these resolutions are abandoned or forgotten. It’s as if smokers promising to quit, would-be gymgoers turning off the treadmill, and frequent spenders hoping to pinch a few more pennies all cry out in unison, “It’s just too hard!” There’s no shame in it. Nearly everyone has made, and subsequently abandoned, a New Year’s resolution – so why do we make them at all?
The answer traces all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia. Life revolved around planting and farming, and their years began during springtime, symbolizing when crops began to grow. With the new year came the Babylonian Akitu Festival, during which time citizens promised to repay their debts and return farming equipment borrowed the previous year in order to appease the gods. It was believed that, by keeping their promise, the Mesopotamians would be treated more favorably by the gods, while if they broke their promise, they would fall out of favor with the gods. Thus began the first of what we now call “resolutions.”
We derive our current calendar – the Julian Calendar– from Emperor Julius Caesar, the ruler of Rome from 46 B.C. to 44 B.C. It was during this time that he established Jan. 1 as the first day of the year (albeit arbitrarily– the day was chosen randomly.) The Romans continued the legacy of the Babylonians in their own way, making sacrifices to the two-faced god Janus and promising moral favors on the first day of their new year.
This calendar, and the practice of resolutions, continued into the Medieval Ages. Knights would go in order, placing their hand upon a peacock (whether it was live or roasted is up to interpretation) and swear to uphold the virtues of their knighthood for the next twelve months.
Recorded resolutions began to show up and increase in usage around the 17th century. A woman by the name of Anne Halkett recorded her own list of pledges in a diary entry she entitled “Resolutions,” detailing her commitments (many of which were biblical) for the new year. By 1802, however, the act of breaking a resolution was so commonplace that Walker’s Hibernian Magazine published a series of satirical resolutions that made jabs at statesmen. The first proper usage of the phrase “New Year Resolution” finally appeared in a newspaper in Boston in 1813.
By 1907, the creation of resolutions and celebration of New Year’s resolutions were so ordinary that the owner of the New York Times, Adolph Ochs, commissioned a lighted ball to be lowered on the roof of Time’s Square in New York, which would reach the bottom at midnight. This tradition has persisted for over 100 years, with thousands gathering every year to watch the annual ball drop in the city and to usher in the new year.
To this day, the spirit of New Year’s resolutions remain just as culturally significant as they did in the past, and they’re just as often broken; however, that desire to be better, and the occasional success in achieving that goal, is a trait humans have held in high regard all throughout history. Whether it is repaying debts and returning farming equipment, keeping a moral promise to the gods, upholding virtues, or simply wanting to lose weight, New Year’s day reminds us of our desire to do better and improve ourselves. Resolutions are a sign of humanity’s desire to take a step forward and to do something they are proud of in the new year.
