New Year’s Eve Resolution

So today is New Year’s Eve 2013. Tonight at midnight, the year will shift to 2014. It will shift from a paint splattered canvas to a crisp, white new one. Each one of us has the opportunity to change the things in our lives that we don’t like. We can decide to change jobs, buy a new house, or purchase a new vehicle. And we can decide to lose weight, get a makeover, to stop cursing, or to stop saying a certain phrase. We can decide to go back to school, start a new life, get married, or get divorced. We can decide to do anything in the world that we want to.

Going from one year to the next is not physically a big shift. You go to sleep and when you wake up, it’s a new year. But for some reason, the mass mindset is that something magical happens at the stroke of midnight between December 31st and January 1st. But the truth is, nothing magical happens. We go to sleep and wake up if we’re lucky. We continue from one day to the next. Time doesn’t know that it is a new year suddenly. Your jobs don’t know. Your vehicles, houses, body, and animals don’t know. So what if the calendar says that it is 2013 or 2014? What has really changed? Nothing.

“The practice of making resolutions for the new year is thought to have first caught on among the ancient Babylonians, who made promises in order to earn the favor of the gods and start the year off on the right foot. (They would reportedly vow to pay off debts and return borrowed farm equipment.)” (http://www.history.com/topics/new-years). How did we go from this practice to setting personal goals? Do you think that losing 10 lbs or getting a new job would earn the favor of the gods? Of ANY god? How did we go from making promises to help others, to making promises that are all about ourselves? You repay your debts and the person you repay them to benefits. You return borrowed farm equipment and the owner can then use it for his own farming chores instead of needing to borrow from someone else. Me losing ten lbs or not cursing as much or learning to live a healthier lifestyle is not going to benefit anyone other than myself.

So I have decided that this year I am going to make promises that benefit others instead of myself. Instead of promising to lose 10 lbs, I’m going to promise to donate food to those in need. Instead of promising to clean up my language, I’m going to clean up a part of my community. Instead of promising to get a degree to improve my financial situation, I promise to get a degree so that I can improve the lives of children in need. These are my New Year’s Resolutions. What are yours?