Ditching Your New Year's Resolution, There's a Day for That!

Celebrating the coming of the New Year is a tradition dating back nearly as long as civilization itself.  The Babylonians celebrated it in March, but the Romans moved it to January, which they named for their two-headed god Janus, who said to be looking backwards to the old year with one head and forward to the new year with the other.

Both the Babylonians and Romans practiced the tradition of adopting New Year's resolutions, however, when the Romans converted to Christianity, they replaced their resolutions with prayers and fasting.  This tradition continued for many years.  Although Puritans practiced prayers and fasting, they also adopted a similar tradition resolution type tradition.  They used the coming of the new year as an opportunity to reflect on the previous year and contemplating the coming year, often setting goals and making moral resolutions.

Today, it seems that New Year's resolutions are meant to be broken.  In fact, January 17th has officially been dubbed Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day.  Whether it be eating healthier, working out more often or just being kinder to others, it seems that nearly all resolutions end up getting "ditched."  With an official day dedicated to abandoning resolutions placed just 17 days after they were supposedly set, it seems that resolutions are meant to be broken.  Perhaps the tendency of people to break resolutions is evidence of humanity's perpetual hopefulness, or maybe it's laziness.

Although a little off topic, I though this was fitting and amusing.