So, did you make any? Have you broken one yet? Two? More? Said, “Oops, I forgot”? Given one or more a hearty “Forget about it”? Of course, I’m talking about resolutions. And fair warning, January 19th is just around the corner!
We were at some friends’ house the other evening. She proclaimed that her resolution this year is to “get everything done.” Seems rather ambitious to me, but then, I didn’t make any resolutions. Seriously – I’m tired of lying to my Fitbit.
“The ancient Babylonians are said to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago. They were also the first to hold recorded celebrations in honor of the new year—though for them the year began not in January but in mid-March, when the crops were planted,” according to History.com. The Babylonians’ celebrations lasted 12 days, or about as long as some hangovers now.
History.com also points out that Roman Emperor Julius Caesar established January 1 as the beginning of the new year circa 46 B.C. Named for Janus, the two-faced god whose spirit inhabited doorways and arches, January had special significance for the Romans. Believing 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.
For early Christians, the first day of the new year became the traditional occasion for thinking about one’s past mistakes and resolving to do and be better in the future. In 1740, the English clergyman John Wesley, founder of Methodism, created the Covenant Renewal Service, most commonly held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.
Despite the tradition’s religious roots, New Year’s resolutions today are a mostly secular practice. Instead of making promises to the gods or God, most people make resolutions only to themselves, and focus purely on self-improvement and attaining goals (which may explain why such resolutions seem so hard to follow through on). According to recent research, while as many as 45 percent of Americans say they usually make New Year’s resolutions, only 8 percent are successful in achieving their goals.
Personally, I’m not really a New-Year’s-resolution-kind-of-guy. Most likely, I have made resolutions in the past because I somehow believed I was supposed to. If I did, however, I have forgotten doing so, let alone what they might have been (probably something I wouldn’t want to repeat in polite company!).
When I was in high school and college – and continuing to live my college experience for a few years post-graduation – New Year’s Eve was an officially sanctioned party, similar to Cinco de Mayo, and a distant second to St. Patty’s Day, when the Irish in each of us comes out.
The next phase was to declare New Year’s Eve “amateur night” – with the clear implication that I was a professional. This was a night for my professional friends and I to stay in rather than go out. It wasn’t an act of snobbery; it was safety – with the uncertainty that it was either unsafe when I was going out partying and I inherently knew it, or what I prefer to believe was not unsafe because I did it and I survived!
Once married and you begin to age (some might say mature), the evolution continues. For a few years, we would spend the night at friends’, playing board games, watching a movie. One year, when their youngest daughter turned 21, she wanted to attend a party at a casino not far from our house, so she dropped them off while she went to the party. She returned to retrieve them about two or three in the morning; the four of us were sitting asleep in the living room!
Eventually, our New Year’s celebrations lasted until we watched the ball drop in Times Square on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.” Despite being in the central time zone, that was enough for us. This year, Nancy saw Puerto Rico’s celebration (Atlantic Time Zone), and was willing to call it good. I thought she was kidding, but after the ball dropped an hour later in New York, I understood that she was serious. It seems that we are embarking on a quest to find locales in preceding time zones leading back to Greenwich Mean Time for which we can celebrate the new year. This works well because that would be about two in the afternoon at home – a good time celebrate, then take a nap!
Of course, leading up to the new year, we have “Top Of” lists to distill an entire year into the “Top 22 ___ of 2022.” Some examples:
- Top 22 albums
- Top 22 songs (name your genre)
- Top 22 movies
- Top 22 streaming movies or shows
- Top 22 Big Ten football players (seriously?)
- Top 22 scoring high school football teams (really?)
- Top 22 Interweave Jewelry Projects (Huh?)
- Top 22 Commander Magic Cards (double Huh?!)
I would offer a contrarian perspective with the Bottom 22, in which I would list the examples of the most egregious political dysfunction. I would, I think, need to exclude individuals, given there are 535 members of Congress, 870 federal judges; and don’t get me started on the states! No, I dare not go there.
We have summarized the past year. We have rung in the new year. Back to those resolutions.
Goskills compiled a list of the top 10 resolutions:
I don’t know about you, but this list seems to capture, categorically, virtually all the resolutions I’ve heard people make over the years. If I were to make resolutions, they would probably fall among nine of the ten categories (I quit smoking 39 years, 9 months, and 27 days ago). I’m afraid I would fail in my resolve for positive change, as the statistical summary of resolutions by the Chamber of Commerce suggests:
Would you – did you – make resolutions? Did they fit into the 10 most common categories? (Perhaps we should focus on the Top 23 for 2023!)
As I said, I don’t make resolutions. If I consider the possibility, it’s as if a void opens in my consciousness. My attitude about resolutions was perhaps best captured in, of all places, a commercial.
I don’t recall the service firm, and I was driving when the commercial came on the radio, but to the best of my recollection, here’s the essence of the message:
What are your New Year’s resolutions?
I don’t make any. Why would I want to make something I know I’m not going to keep? Have you made any?
I . . . uh . . . .
Just as I thought. At ABC Company, we strive to deliver the best service year-round. If there’s something we can do better, we work on it when figure it out, not wait until the first of the year to make a resolution to do it.
There are things that I continue trying to do, regardless of whether they are expressed as resolutions. And I work on them whenever I identify a need or opportunity. I want to be kinder, more patient, more adventurous in trying new things.
How do I measure progress? One example of being more patient is that I rarely give driving lessons to others on streets alongside, in front of, or behind me. My wife used to tell me it did no good getting mad and shouting at other drivers; but I explained that I simply was raising my voice so I could be heard as I explained their mistakes and gave instructions for how to improve. I considered it a public service. Since not everyone saw it that way and given the acceleration of road-rage to extreme levels, with more people packing, I decided it was a good time to retire my driver education efforts.
Being more adventurous has a relatively low bar. I will not – not ever; never – jump out of an airplane. I won’t even try ziplining because of the height. But I will hike new trails; our niece has suddenly become an avid hiker and offers new challenges each time out. I will engage in spontaneous conversations with people I don’t know and learn more about them and their life experiences. Each time I do this I learn something – as people in our culture, we typically share more in common than we have differences: we might vote differently, we like different music, but we want to enjoy life, we want the best for our children.
In the weeks leading to the mid-term elections, amid the divisiveness and anger, the Church of the Resurrection offered a sermon series on Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” ESVA They distilled the verse and printed it on t-shirts and yard signs.
Nancy subscribes to the “Ten Percent Happier” app. The current series, “The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness,” features a meditation by Roshi Joan Halifax; in it she says, Recall the motivation to be of benefit to others. We’ve already seen how caring for others brings strength and joy to our lives.
Larger powerboats and sailboats tend to be named by their owners. Some names are humorous, such as Wet Dream, while others are contemplative, like My Therapy. As we walked along the Naples pier the other evening, I noticed a boat that was inscribed with a phrase – Crossroads come and go – in addition to its name. Interpreted in the context of New Year’s Resolutions, the phrase underscores that we come to decision points – to opportunities for self-improvement – periodically over time.
These are the times that test our resolve; not a resolution I make on January 1st and give up by January 19th – they require on-going awareness and attention and effort. If I can strive to keep these thoughts top-of-mind, and act accordingly, it will make me a better man.
Mike's Fountain Pen 
Most people might not even make a New Year Resolution. I like the Kindness way to approach things, making all things better. Looking everyday to move forward using a positive choice.
Love you,
Keep them coming
Nancy
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