Time has a way of sneaking up on us, so many times events will happen and I find myself thinking "Where does the time go", well it's happened again with the beginning of a new year. I realized I can sometimes be a little slow on the draw as it's already the 12th of the month but hey better late than never right.
Anyway when I start thinking about something I have a tendency to have - what I call - "Odd Ball" thoughts. Well when the new year rolled around it brought to mind "New Year Resolutions" and of course my first thought was "Where did this come from, how did the tradition start". This of course led me to start doing a little research on the subject which now leads to this post.
As we all know a New Years resolution is a promise we make on New Years Eve to make certain changes or self improvements during the year ahead. Well you might be surprised to learn that this practice dates back to the Babylonians more than 4,000 years ago. In March when the spring harvest came in the Babylonian people celebrated Akitu a festival which lasted for 12 days.
During the festival promises were made to the gods such as returning borrowed objects and paying debts.The belief was that by keeping these promises their gods would shed grace on the people during the upcoming year and breaking them most certainly would put them out of favor.
Fast forward a few centuries and you'd find the Romans practicing similar traditions again in March. During the reign of Julius Caesar is when the change was made from March to January, this change is also how the month of January got its name.
It's believed that January is derived from the name Janus the two-faced god that the Romans worshiped. The two faces symbolize one who looks backwards into the old year and the other looking forward into the new. The tone of resolutions also changed during this time period when good will toward others became important.
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| 2016 New Years Eve Ball - "The Gift of Wonder" by Waterford |
Of course times have changed and today we certainly don't make our yearly promises for the same reasons as the ancient Babylonians or Romans did. No, ours are made on a personal level to ourselves - always with good intentions by the way - but this quite possibly may explain why a great percentage don't follow through with their resolutions.
But no matter, whether you follow through with resolutions or not while watching the ball drop - oh and the Times Square Ball also has an interesting history but that's another post topic - it's a fun tradition to toast in the New Year and make a few resolutions.
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