A day or so ago, I gave everyone an update on how I did on my New Year’s resolutions for 2019. I do this pretty much every year. And — I usually ramble on about why people even bother to make resolutions because such a small percentage of people keep such a small percentage of their resolutions. So I thought maybe I’d look into the history of resolutions — that might shed some light on why we continue to resolve to do all these things every year that we don’t do.
From what I can tell, the Babylonians where the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, about 4,000 years ago. Back then, the new year began in March, when the crops were planted. Every year they held a 12-day religious festival known as Akitu. During the celebration, they crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king. They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. These promises may have been the forerunner of our New Year’s resolutions.
In Rome, around 46 B.C. Julius Caesar tinkered with the calendar and established January 1 as the beginning of the new year. January was named for Janus, the two-faced god whose spirit inhabited doorways and arches. The month had a special significance for the Romans — they believed that Janus symbolically looked backwards into the previous year and ahead into the future. The Romans offered sacrifices to the deity and made promises of good conduct for the coming year.
The early Christians made the first day of the new year the occasion for thinking about one’s past mistakes and resolving to do and be better in the future.
In 1740, John Wesley, founder of Methodism, created the Covenant Renewal Service — most commonly held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. These services were also known as watch night services and included readings from the Scriptures and the singing of hymns. They were intended to serve as a spiritual alternative to the raucous celebrations normally held to celebrate the coming of the new year.
These services are still popular within evangelical Protestant churches, especially African-American denominations — watch night services held on New Year’s Eve are often spent praying and making resolutions for the coming year.
Today, it seems like a lot of things are “all about me,” and resolutions apparently have taken that route. Instead of making promises to the gods, most people make resolutions only to themselves, and focus purely on self-improvement.
The last I checked, about 45 percent of Americans at least say they usually make New Year’s resolutions, but only about 8 percent are successful in achieving their goals.
So every year when you read about my lofty goals for the coming year and my confession that I didn’t reach my goals for the past year, just remember that I’m not alone. And me and the other 45 percent of Americans aren’t likely to stop making resolutions — it’s hard to give up a habit that’s 4,000 years old.
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