New Year's resolutions are a list of wishes and goals that you would like to achieve in the new year. It is a promise we make to ourselves to fulfill the desired goals. Such a tradition has been around for thousands of years, but it hasn't always looked like it does today.
About 4000 years ago, the Babylonians are the first made New Year's resolutions. They were also the first to hold celebrations in honor of the new year – although for them the new year did not start in January, but in the middle of March. They held the twelve-day Akitu religious festival where they crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king.
They also promised the gods that they would pay their debts and return any items they borrowed. If the Babylonians kept their word, their pagan gods would grant them favor for the coming year. If not, the gods would give up on them. These promises could considered to be predecessors of our New Year's resolutions.
A similar practice occurred in ancient Rome. Julius Caesar died in 45 BC. n. no. played with the calendar and set January 1 as the start of the new year. January had for The Romans have a special meaning. It was named after Janus, the two-faced god whose spirit resided at the door. The Romans believed that Janus symbolically looked back at the past year and forward into the future, so they offered sacrifices to the deity and promised good behavior for next year.
For Christians, the first day of the new year has become a traditional opportunity to reflect on their past mistakes and decisions. In 1740, the English priest John Wesley created a covenant renewal service, which most often took place on New Year's Eve. At that time, they read the Bible, sang hymns and celebrated loudly. Today it happened turned into prayers and making decisions for the coming year.
Most people today accept decisions only for themselves and focuses solely on self-improvement. New Year's resolutions most often include goals such as taking better care of your health, quitting smoking, drinking less coffee and alcohol, losing a few kilograms and doing more physical activity. But it is sometimes easier to make resolutions than to fulfill them in the long term, so that in most cases only these come out by the end of January. What will your resolutions be this year?
