Happy Gregorian New Year!
On having no resolutions and saying yes to daily intentions
Honestly, January 1 feels like just another day to me. When I was younger, it didn’t really hold as much significance as the first day of school.
I often thought it was an inconvenience to have a school year cover two years, for instance, I was in first grade from 1982-1983. To this day, I can’t really remember if I finished first grade in ‘82 or ‘83. So I have to visualize my yearbook to see that date, then count back from my year of birth to when I turned 7 to make sure I got the year right.
Not that it matters, but my point is, if age is just a number, the start of the year is also just a date. It doesn’t help that I have been accustomed with the concept of a New Year and a Chinese New Year. The New Year is based on the Gregorian solar calendar. The Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar, where the first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between January 21 and February 20. This explains why it keeps changing each year. This year, we’re celebrating it on January 22, transitioning us to The Year of the Rabbit.
Two different New Year celebrations, so which one’s more official?
Thanks to Instagram, and only this year I have to point out, I’ve discovered that celebrating the New Year on January 1 was kind of random. It is not tied to a natural or seasonal marker such as an equinox or solstice. According to history.com, Julius Caesar’s calendar reform of 46 B.C. instituted January 1 as the first of the year to celebrate the Roman god Janus, whom scholars regard as the god of all beginnings. The ancient Romans would make sacrifices and promises to Janus on January 1. In a Science Daily post, it is said that,
"Rome's highest officials made a resolution to remain loyal to the republic and swore oaths to the Emperor on 1st January," said Professor Richard Alston, from the Department of Classics at Royal Holloway University.
"A grand ceremony marked the occasion, where the Roman legions would parade and sacrifices were made on the Capitoline Hill. This annual event renewed the bonds between citizens, the state and the gods."
New Year's Day offered all Roman citizens an opportunity to reflect on the past and look to the year ahead. People would exchange sweet fruits and honey, greet each other with blessings for the coming year and the courts only worked in the mornings, so they had a half day holiday.
Sounds like our modern day New Year resolutions. Note the extent of its parallelism with the fall of the Roman empire. My “No-Buy Year” resolution many years ago comes to mind. I failed to enforce it no sooner than the second week of January, and my resolve crumbled by February, a faint, barely perceptible shadow of the noble and glorious proclamation I made on January 1. Thinking about it now, I ask myself how I deluded myself into thinking I could survive a year without buying anything. Like a Roman high official, not much different from a modern day politician, I made promises I could not keep.
What is interesting actually are the various dates people around the world have celebrated the New Year.
In the Middle Ages in England, from 1155 until 1752, New Year’s Day was celebrated on March 25, Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation and the first quarter day of the year. It is said that the Lady Day was a traditional day on which year-long contracts between landowners and tenant farmers would begin as it conveniently did not fall within or between the seasons for ploughing and harvesting.
The Jews to this celebrate the New Year on Rosh Hashanah. According to Farmer’s Almanac, it is,
A two-day Jewish celebration of the New Year that literally translates to “head of the year” in Hebrew. It is observed on the first and second days of the Jewish month of Tishrei, the first month in the civil calendar. In 2023, it will begin on the evening of Friday, September 15, and end at sundown on Sunday, September 17.
Depending on our beliefs, the importance of the New Year is actually tied to the symbolic meaning we put on the dates. The date itself could be arbitrary. Which only means, new beginnings can happen any time, and the best time is when we are ready.
That is why I’ve decided to instead focus on making daily intentions. I cannot promise weekly newsletters, but I can choose to write when inspiration strikes. Who knows, releasing myself from the pressure could actually make me enjoy the process more. Instead of saying I won’t buy anything for the rest of the year, I can say I’d be more intentional about my purchases. I find that daily intentions anchor me to the present while keeping me motivated and focused on what I want out of life. I think that’s where resolutions fail to deliver. By reflecting on the past and looking to the year ahead, it fails to take account of the present. And the gift of gratitude and insights always come to us when we are centered in the now.