Why do we bother making New Year's resolutions?

And here we are… 2013. Just like that, nearly two weeks have already gone by here in The Grand Duchy. Maybe New Year’s resolutions are still intact, maybe not. There are still 350 days to go, more or less; plenty of time for broken hopes and broken dreams. Actually, that’s a bit too melodramatic. But there will be broken promises, sure enough, sooner than later, I am guessing.

The practice of making New Year’s resolutions dates all the way back to Babylon 4000 years ago. This, of course, suggests that humankind has a very long track record of going back on its word. That’s a bleak summation. Nonetheless, we persist, which offers some weird sense of hope. Or maybe we’re just historically sadomasochistic.

I don’t recall my parents making resolutions when I was young. At least they never mentioned anything about them, though they may have made them privately. I doubt it. As for me, I very rarely make them. Last year was one exception.

The four of us sat around the dinner table on January 1, 2012 and wrote down our resolutions. Just a few weeks before, our older son pulled his list off the bulletin board in his room, where he had them pinned up, and was quite pleased to notice that he held fast to most. He easily outdid the rest of us.

I failed all of mine: lose weight, be kind to strangers, don’t swear, take and complete a language course, sit straighter, become a vegetarian, grow hair… the usual sorts of things we wish to change about ourselves.

I wonder, though, as I write; why do we even bother making resolutions? What is the urge, the impetus that drives us? Why do we wait till the first of the year to make them? And why are they so extreme? I won’t. I will. These aren’t commandments.

Even as the words come tumbling out of our mouths or pen on New Year’ Day, we know we’re destined to fail, because more than likely we made similar resolutions the year before. What we need is Viagra-type medication that will make our resolutions last.

I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for starting something new, be it a new gym routine or a new food regime, on the first day of a new week or month, as if any alpha will stave off the inevitable omega of my quest. Note to self and others; it doesn’t work. That goes for resolutions made at the start of a new year, too.

By Dan Franch