New Year

“But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail”
Or will we, Mr Shakespeare?

It’s the oldest holiday of all – thought to go back as far as the ancient Babylonians, 4000 years ago – yes, it’s New Year. Of course for those of us in Bangkok it’s actually the first of three New Years that we’ll celebrate. For the ancient Babylonians the New Year started some time at the end of March, which strikes me as a rather apt and logical time to begin something new, along with spring, new crops and baby animals.

Of course if you look around the world, it’s all random. New Year depends on many things but it begins on the 1st January for those of us that use a 365 day solar calendar. The Chinese use a lunar calendar in which the months are based on phases of the moon and so the year is less than 365 days. The Thai New Year date was set by astrological calculation – although now it is a fixed date.

The date for our New Year has jumped around a lot, having been variously 25 December and 25 March but we’ve Julius Caesar to thank for 1 January when in 46BC he developed the Julian calendar to indicate the seasons more precisely than the previous calendar had.

The Romans named the first month ‘Janus’ after a fabled early king of Rome with two faces: one of which looked back and the other that looked forward. As well as symbolizing start and finish of the year he represented generally the start and finish of life and its patterns: including door ways, gate ways, plantings, harvest, births and marriages. But it is this ‘two faced’ attribute that I think is the crux of the matter.

Just as the two faces of Janus looked both to the past and the future, this is the time of year when traditionally we look at our behaviour in preparation for New Year resolutions. Thinking of past failures we look to the future and think of all the habits we can change: most commonly losing weight and giving up smoking.

The New Year Resolution is in my opinion ludicrous; a rather amusing but silly tradition. Like April Fools’ Day it should exist only for mild merriment. It harks back to a time when we lived seasonally and planned for the recommencement of the cycle.

Resolving mid December to do something on the 1 January is so easy if you are replete with Christmas treats, alcohol and nicotine. It gives us permission, in the interim, to dip into the chocolates, have another glass of wine, and smoke too much. It tells us we’re permitted to slump on the sofa rather than visit the gym.

How about the reality? By the beginning of February nearly half will have abandoned their resolutions.

I’m not campaigning that you remain passive to your over indulgences. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t try to change things for the better but I would like to point out that New Year is a bit of silly fun, and you could see any day of the year as a time to sort out your intemperance.

And as I started with a quote from Shakespeare I shall end with words from Mark Twain:

“New Year’s Day … now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”