Now that a new year is upon us, most people turn to
resolutions they will never keep. We promise ourselves. We convince ourselves.
A few days later and it is like those promises were never spoken. The middle of
January seems to be the cut-off point. A few weeks of trying finds most people
sick of it all. Come the halfway mark of the month and things are back to
normal. Granted, there are some who follow through on their resolutions. Some
stick with a diet, some quit smoking. Many join a gym. It is rare to find
someone who holds to their guns and proceeds throughout the year. For most of
us, myself included, the entire process is nothing but jumbled words that have
no real meaning. Life is complicated so it is no surprise that we tend to ditch
anything that might add to our mess. Our intentions are always grand come New
Year’s Day, but they quietly fade away back into nothing. I suppose the
tradition serves some purpose. I would argue it’s like confessing to a priest
or attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. You put it out there but it only
serves that moment, and very little else. Most people hope for change but they
do nothing to make it so. All the talk in the world is for naught if you do not
make good on your word, particularly when you are only disappointing yourself. We
all want to make a fresh beginning. We all want to be better, to act better and
to live better. Unfortunately, it takes work to make a difference and most
people are too lazy to really care about anything but the Smartphone in their
hand. New Year resolutions, for the most part, are a waste of time. Any good
that might come out of them is lost the moment we push them out of our mouths.
They serve no actual function.
The customs
behind making a New Year’s resolution have been around for thousands of years.
The tradition is the same but the meaning has evolved over centuries. New Year’s resolutions have not always looked
the way they do today. Primarily a “Western Hemisphere ”
practice, millions of people every year vow to kick their bad habits, make life
richer and make themselves richer too. In an attempt to make the next year more
salutary, we promise away undesired traits, and bad behaviour, “in order to
accomplish a goal or improve our life.” The foundation of the tradition lies
more in the religious than the secular (that we tend to follow these days).
Instead of making promises to yourself, people in antiquity made their
resolutions to God. The Babylonians (1895 BC - 539 BC) “made promises to their
gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay
their debts.” The Romans (27 BCE - 476 CE) “began each year by making promises
to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named.” In the Medieval era,
the knights took a “vow at the end of the Christmas season each year,” re-affirming
their commitment to chivalry. Many Christians continue to prepare for the year
ahead by making resolutions to their God. A watchnight
service is a “late-night Christian church service.” In various Christian
segments, such as Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal, “watchnight services are held late on New Year’s Eve, and end after
midnight.” This provides the opportunity for “Christians to review the year
that has passed and make confession, and then prepare for the year ahead by
praying and resolving.” There are many parallels between other religious
traditions and the custom of making resolutions. Judaism has Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year,
which culminates in Yom Kippur (the
Day of Atonement). It is here that the followers are “to reflect upon one’s
wrongdoings over the year and both seek and offer forgiveness.” The secular
version seems to be the more popular. Every year, millions of us make promises
that some actually will try to keep. An American study discovered 46% of participants
who made common New Year’s resolutions (e.g. weight loss, exercise programs,
quitting smoking) “were likely to succeed, over ten times as among those
deciding to make life changes at other times of the year.” Perhaps there is
something to all this.
Over time,
things evolve, they change and they grow. Practice turns into tradition and
tradition evolves based on culture and ethnocentric factors. The North American
experience is only but one of the many faces of the New Year. Each season, New
Year festivities spread out all over the world. Each one a cultural and, in
many cases, a religious expression. Each custom is merely a variant of the same
theme. The standard fireworks and countdown seem to manifest around the globe
but there are individual aspects that differ to one degree or another. They may
seem trivial, even useless, but they express the same message across the board.
In China ,
celebrants paint their front doors red to “symbolize happiness and good luck in
the New Year.” In India ,
the change from December to January is greeted but there are many different
dates recognized as the New Year. The most common is Rongali Bihu, which is “celebrated in mid-April on the first day of
the Hindu solar calendar.” For those celebrating in France , “le reveillion de la
Saint-Sylvestre (eve of New Year’s eve)” is an opulent alternative to lesser
forms of revelation. Participants “feast for hours on foie gros, goose or
turkey, oysters and plenty of champagne,” all meant to “signify fortune in the
year to come.” At the stroke of midnight, Spanish revellers “ eat 12 grapes,”
one for each time that the clock strikes down at midnight. Completion will
determine your luck throughout the coming year. As mentioned previously, Israel finds
the New Year in early autumn with Rosh
Hashanah. The Islamic New Year, Al-Hijra,
occurs on the first day of Muharram
which is ”the first month in the Islamic lunar calendar (late September).” In Canada , and other parts of North
America , annual Polar Bear Plunges have become routine. At
midnight, on December 31st, many “Buddhist temples ring their bells
108 times,” then retreat to their temple to feast and pray together. For Orthodox
Christians, New Year’s Eve finds entire neighbourhoods walking the streets
singing carols, then they feast. The vasilopita,
or St. Basil’s Cake, “is cooked with a coin inside, and the recipient of the
piece of cake with the coin is said to be lucky for the coming year.”
I used to
spend New Year’s Day entertaining family and friends. Sometimes, they would
entertain me. My Mom always gathered her family around her and served a huge
meal. It was so much work for her but it mattered as much as anything else
would. It can be such a busy day. More revelry, more food, more relatives can
be too much. Lately, any arrangement we made regarding holiday celebrations
left January 1st unattended.
I like it that way. No rush, no cooking, just the couch and all the junk food
Christmas mustered. Besides memories of televised events from the night before,
the day brings all the festivities to a crashing end. It’s over, for the most
part. My sister uses the holiday to take down most of her Christmas fare. My
Dad’s house is vetted just the same. Calendars are attended to, and the new
year finds a place to hang for over 12 months. I take the day off and begin
removal on January 2nd, if I am free. The week after the event is
rather boring. Media, in most of its form, would have us reliving the events
from the year past. Over and over again, top ten lists abound and constant
reviews of the year. So we seem to do the things that we did and did not do the
year before. Each holds like a mirror to our fault and our failure. Our only
hope is to have some form of hope. We make resolutions for just this reason. We
strive to make it a better year right from the get go. We tell ourselves if we
do this, or don’t do that, the months that follow will bring what we desire the
most. We wish for prosperity, yet do nothing to earn it. We wish for luck then
run reckless throughout our lives. We want so many things, we resolve to do so
many things, but it all just seems clutter in a room reserved for wasting your
time.
Early on,
the entire energy of New Year’s, especially New Year’s Eve, has been lost on
me. I never really got just what the big deal was all about. I thought time was
relative. After all these years of festivals and concerts and countdowns, you
would think I would have somehow clued in along the way. This has not happened.
I still shake my head at people freezing for a mere 10 seconds even if I have
been one of them. I have toasted so many years’ passing that I barely remember
them all. I can’t believe all the time I’ve spent waiting for something that
really is irrelevant. As we celebrate the final moments of the year, half the
planet already has. I guess for me, the entire festival seems like a waste of
time. Granted, “we value analogous things and celebrate in our own ways, but we
all love to share these moments we hold sacred.” Over the years, I have
experienced many fun-filled evenings leading up to the big event. There have
been just as many that found me quietly enjoying, finally, a silent night. If
you turn off the volume on your tech, you do not have to listen to all the
noise as the ball drops and the confetti flies in Times
Square . You also don’t have to listen to Ryan Seascrest bore us
with his vanilla appeal. I will admit to entertaining myself by interacting
with family and friends on New Year’s Day. The night before, that cherished eve,
and I am watching CNN or ABC, sipping on a drink or two and sharing the moment
with my partner. The New Year comes and there is little difference to me. I
still don’t get it. People spend so much time and energy on such superficial
things. We use money to buy our happiness. We don’t deserve it. Our priority is
self-gratification rather than a general concern for mankind. Imagine if New York skipped the
confetti on New Year’s and donated that money to the homeless or downtrodden.
I’m not saying we should not celebrate the passing from one year to another, it
just seems more spectacle than substance. No matter how you celebrate the New
Year, “most people around the world embrace and honour the passage of time with
mixtures of reverence and revelry.” We all make resolutions and we mostly fail
to follow through on them. Most people are just lazy. Most people do the same
things year after year. I suppose if it brings a little joy into one’s life
then it can’t be such a bad thing. Sometimes, I am not in on the joke. I do
recognize that these common rituals show how similar we all are, despite how
unique and diverse our cultures.
Photos
Sources
