Where New Year’s resolutions come from – NPR

Revelers release New Year’s resolutions attached to balloons at Tokyo’s Zojoji Temple at the strike of midnight on Jan. 1, 1996. Atsushi Tsukada / AP

Special Series, Word of the week

Why do we make New Year’s resolutions? A brief history of a long tradition

December 31, 20255:01 AM ET, Heard on All Things Considered

By Rachel Treisman 2-Minute Listen Transcript

Revelers release New Year’s resolutions attached to balloons at Tokyo’s Zojoji Temple at the strike of midnight on Jan. 1, 1996. Atsushi Tsukada / AP

Join the club — it’s several thousand years old.

New Year’s resolutions are a key part of how many people observe the holiday, as much of an annual tradition as the Times Square ball drop or a midnight champagne toast.

History

Why do so many people ring in the new year on Jan. 1?

The concept of taking stock and vowing to do better in the new year actually dates back centuries, though there wasn’t always a pithy name for it.

The word “resolution” entered English from Latin in the late 14th century, originally defined as the STEM-coded “process of reducing things into simpler forms.” Over time, it broadened to more figurative meanings, like solving conflicts and remaining steadfast. By the 19th century, it had also come to signify an expression of intent — including for the year ahead.

One of the first appearances of the phrase “new year resolutions” was in a Boston newspaper in 1813, according to Merriam-Webster.

And yet, I believe there are multitudes of people, accustomed to receive injunctions of new year resolutions, who will sin all the month of December, with a serious determination of beginning the new year with new resolutions and new behaviour, and with the full belief that they shall thus expiate and wipe away all their former faults — Unknown, 1813

But diary entries show that people had been practicing the concept well before then — like English writer Anne Halkett, who wrote a list of Bible-inspired pledges on Jan. 2, 1671, titled “Resolutions.”

Historians trace the phenomenon even farther back: to 2000 B.C., when Babylonians celebrated the new year with a 12-day springtime festival called Akitu. They marked the arrival of the farming season by crowning a new king, thanking deities for a bountiful harvest and, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, resolving to return neighbors’ borrowed agricultural equipment.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Where New Year’s resolutions come from : NPR

#BestNewYearSEve #History #HumanHistory #NationalPublicRadio #NewYearSResolutions #NPR #SpecialSeries #WhyMakeResolutions #WordOfTheWeek