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The New Year is upon us. I get a chuckle from all the talk about New Years resolutions. I mostly enjoy the skeptics that “resolve not to make New Years resolutions.”

I always ask myself why it is so important for these people to declare that they have no interest in making a commitment to improve their lives. It doesn’t much matter to me that they don’t want to set goals for the coming year but what continues to amaze me is their interest in announcing it. I think it is that they refuse to be bullied by the tradition. My guess is they will make their goals on their own time.

I have a different view. I love the history of this tradition and the reminder it provides me to be grateful and to evaluate, learn and plan.

From The Age,

While most of our lives don’t revolve around the agrarian cycle, the metaphor is still relevant to today.

The Romans named the first month of the year after Janus, the god of beginnings and the guardian of doors and entrances. He was always depicted with two faces, one on the front of his head and one on the back. Thus he could look backward and forward at the same time. So as midnight approached on December 31, the Romans imagined Janus looking back at the old year and forward to the new.

In Wales, tradition has it that at the first toll of midnight, the back door should be opened and then shut to release the old year and lock out all of its bad luck. Then at the twelfth stroke of the clock, the front door is opened and the New Year is welcomed with all of its good luck.

These traditions are valuable reminders that we must look back to learn and evaluate from the past year and then plan and set new objectives for the new year. It is the combination of looking backward for wisdom and forward with hope that enables us to reach our potential. Not doing both makes a resolution an exercise in futility and likely unattainable.