Why You Shouldn’t Make New Year’s Resolutions

I no longer make New Year’s resolutions. why? Tired of not keeping them. Weight loss was often at the top of my New Year’s list… no more.

Back in 1947, losing weight was the last thing on the Gallup poll’s New Year’s resolution list. But that’s when he was voted #1 out of 10 in the 2021 survey. Does this reversal reflect changes in our country’s eating habits?

What about deleting old emails? Removing them was one of my must-have decisions until recently. Recently, my 13-year-old granddaughter saw my computers and asked me why I kept them. At heart, I am an instinctive hoarder.

Recently, my New Year’s goal was to create a folder for each subject in Microsoft One Drive. Today, my One Drive remains a huge jumbled sea of ​​all uncategorized items. Thanks to Microsoft programming, the items are all in alphabetical order.

So how did the idea of ​​New Year’s resolutions come about? Marketing geniuses of the past asked the question, “What will I sell if I ask people to make New Year’s resolutions starting January 1st?” You may have brainstormed.

Never before has there been such a marketing plan that I can find.

The predecessor of the New Year’s resolutions ritual dates back 4,000 years in Babylonia. To maintain the favor of their gods, promises were made to pay off debts and return whatever was borrowed. The Babylonians also swore continuous loyalty to the reigning king.

Furthermore, I didn’t know that the concept of the year is based on the rotation of the earth around the sun. and that in 46 BC Julius Caesar decided to make his January 1st the first day of the year.

This date honored Janus, the two-faced god who symbolically looked back on the previous year and ushered in the new year. The Romans made sacrifices to Janus, promising good deeds for the coming year. Another one of his pioneers in the concept of New Year’s resolutions.

During the Middle Ages, medieval knights participated in the game of New Year’s resolutions by renewing their pledges to chivalry. Historians tell us that the code of chivalry on the actual 10 Mandatory List was the power elite’s way of keeping good knights in check.

Then, in 1813, a Boston newspaper recorded the first use of the phrase “New Year’s resolutions.” It kept saying that people would deliberately become December sinners, and their sins would be wiped out by new actions starting on the first day of January. My guess is that the belief is still so in certain cultures.

Further reading of ancient customs and traditions revealed nothing resembling a weight loss determination. Perhaps the Babylonians, medieval knights, and their kin had more to think about for the coming New Year than the start of a bulging belly.

So why have I given up on New Year’s resolutions more than I failed to do each year? Their advice was to evaluate progress over the long term. And just like New Year’s resolutions, not days or weeks.

In December 2019, after much consideration, I committed myself to a long-term solution. It was for me to get through the next decade. How? Journey into the future by carefully avoiding potential minefields and mitigating healthier lifestyle changes.

To some, the ten-year resolution from 2020 to 2030 may seem contrived. But it makes sense to me. Now, at the beginning of 2023, I can say that I have fulfilled my first three-year commitment.

But the past came to mind unexpectedly during the holidays in December 2022. As I weighed myself, I heard a whisper in my mind. “There is a one-month resolution scenario for lowering your scale’s holiday high weight readings.”

Juan A. Negroni is a former international business executive and Weston resident, consultant, bilingual speaker/facilitator, and writer. His column appears monthly in Hearst Connecticut Media. Email him at juannegroni12@gmail.com.