So here we are another year behind us. My friends and family are all talking about what they are doing to celebrate this year. Everyone wants to make it a huge, great celebration. Amongst the topics of how to celebrate are what their New Year’s resolutions are going to be. Of course, as always, they include more exercise, better diets, less alcohol, more family time, quit smoking, spend less money, blah blah blah. Seems like the same old stuff.
So it started me thinking. How many resolutions have I made over the years? Wow, plenty. Couldn’t count them. Every resolution kept? No! I lost weight finally. Went from over 300 to 170. Congratulations to me. But believe me it wasn’t because I made a resolution to do it. So really why do people make resolutions. I read that over 52 percent of people who make resolutions don’t keep them. So again I ask, why do we do it.
So I kept reading and wondering. This is what I discovered. Resolutions at the first of the year signify a new fresh start and a clean slate. Most of us are bent towards self improvement. That’s the way of mankind.
Did you know we aren’t the people who started this anyway. As it turns out 4,000 years ago, Babylonians rang in the new year with an 11-day festival in March. Ancient Egyptians celebrated their new calendar during the Nile River’s annual flood! In 46 B.C. Julius Caesar moved the first day of the year to the first of January in honor of the Roman god of beginnings, Janus.
Guess what? In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII brought the January 1st New Year back in vogue with the Gregorian calendar. So the origin of making New Year’s resolutions starts the Babylonians, who often made promises to the gods in hopes they would earn good favor in the coming year. They often resolved to…you got it…get out of debt.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE. I hope 2016 is good to you and your family.
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