Real Change
New Year’s Resolutions: Our Annual Descent Into Self-Centered Psychosis
Everything you are doing there is wrong
“Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through go through life, son.” — Dean Wormer
I’ve made countless post-Christmas resolutions to lose weight, curb my drinking, or learn a new skill in the coming year. As you might guess, my failure at each came somewhere between January 2nd and the 5th.
There was that one statistical outlier that saw me lose five pounds only to see it magically reappear watching my Chiefs beat the 49ers in that NFL-trademarked game one early February.
It wasn’t my fault. It was a case of nervous eating and not sniffing a championship for 50 years.
When Did This Become a Thing?
I’d like to blame the fitness industry for this madness. January 1st seems to be their Black Friday, after all. I would wager that 90% of their marketing spend is budgeted from the day after Thanksgiving to January 1st.
The only competition for airtime during that time frame is that freakishly loud personal injury attorney who wants to sue the crap out of anybody who dared door-ding your 2009 Kia.
The truth is, this whole fiasco was started by the Babylonians over 4,000 years ago. As they celebrated the new year, they made pledges to repay their debts and return borrowed farming tools before the next planting season.
I’m sure they lied, like my neighbor, who seems to have declared eminent domain over my extension ladder.
Medieval knights made pledges to renew their vows of chivalry and knightly valor at the beginning of the new year. For some reason, whose significance has been lost, they made these resolutions while placing their hand on the back of a peacock or pheasant.
It is interesting to note that it did not matter whether the bird in question was alive or roasted.
By the late 1800s, people began to see the futility of this tradition and had even turned it into a kind of New Year’s Eve drinking game.
In the 1899 knee slapper, The Book of Games and How to Play Them, author Mary White suggests the following:
Oh, those crazy Victorians.
Despite recognizing the humor and futility of making promises to yourself that you have no intention of keeping, the ridiculousness continues to this day.
Our Resolutions Have Become Increasingly Self-Centered
A Gallup poll in 1947 found that the number one New Year's Resolution that year was — To improve my disposition, be more understanding, and control my temper.
In other words, be a better person.
Fast forward to 2023, the number one resolution is a tie between the highly correlated, lose weight and exercise more.
In other words, be a better-looking person.
There is enough here to unpack to make for a post of its own, but suffice it to say, that 4,000 years of this nonsense doesn’t seem to have moved the cultural collective in the right direction.
What if a Different Type of Resolution is All We Need?
A man once told me, ”Words mean many things.”
Perhaps our failing is not that we make worthless proclamations of personal change. Maybe we simply misunderstood the exercise and the meaning of the term.
In music, the term resolution refers to a chord progression that moves the listener from a state of instability and tension to a place of calm and rest. It creates a stable platform and establishes the direction for the melody.
Composers describe it as creating a sense of peace and closure.
Maybe New Year’s resolutions aren’t about changing ourselves into something we are not and likely will never be.
Maybe the goal is to rid ourselves of the things that create tension, anxiety, and shame.
Maybe it’s recognizing that who we were in the past year is enough to conquer the next.
Maybe it’s embarking on the course that God has charted for us.
And maybe, just maybe, it will lead you to the happiest year yet.
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Wishing you a joyous and prosperous New Year — TheNewOldGuy