My New Year蘑菇视频 resolutions didn鈥檛 resolve anything
My New Year’s resolutions would have already been broken if I’d decided to make any.
Eight days into 2024 and poof!
But I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions, because by Dec. 31, 2023, I’d resolved not to make any more of them.
So I didn’t!
MEMO TO SELF: Try to find out definitively if resolving not to make anymore New Year’s resolutions is, by its nature, a New Year’s resolution.
I hadn’t made a lot of New Year’s resolutions since the late 1980s. I made good on my promise to give up drinking in 1989. But only because I wasn’t much of a drinker, and I considered it a waste of money.
I’ve made other New Year’s resolutions that didn’t work out nearly as well.
I probably resolved to quit smoking on January 1sts dozens of times. I resumed smoking dozens of times by a lot of January 2nds.
When I finally did give up smoking, it had nothing to do with any New Year’s resolution. I quit thanks to some of those nicotine patches – in the middle of a year – sometime after I’d been diagnosed with lung cancer.
I also discovered that this New Year’s resolution thing has been around for thousands of years.
Numerous sources claim the Babylonians started the practice about 2000 B.C. (although the folks at the History Channel claim it was 4000 B.C.) with a New Year festival as part of the beginning of the farming season.
But their New Year wasn’t in January. The Babylonians’ New Year was in mid-March – the beginning of their crop-planting seasons.
It wasn’t a one-day celebration. It lasted for 12 days. Can you imagine how physically draining it could have been for some Babylonians to have partied for 12 days?
At my age, I struggle to stay awake until midnight on New Year’s Eve. Having to do that 12 times might have been impossible.
I have no problem with other people who feel they’d like to make New Year’s resolutions. According to the folks at Forbes, 37% of the people living in the United States set their own goals for the beginning of 2023.
You have to wonder how many will be successful with them.
I didn’t know until now (searching the internet) that New Year’s resolutions “are a prime example of a psychological phenomenon known as the fresh start effect.”
In short, if you set a specific date to perform a specific function or set of functions, it helps give you an advantage toward achieving your goal.
There’s no better day than Jan. 1 to give yourself and your resolutions a fresh start.
Forbes went all in on New Year’s resolution data research. They (Forbes Health/OnePoll) conducted a poll among 1,000 U.S. adults last October – that revealed a lot about how Americans look at their New Year’s resolutions.
When they asked people what their New Year’s resolutions for 2024 would be, 48% of them chose to “Improve fitness.”
But to “Improve fitness” won’t necessarily be at the top of the list of New Year’s resolutions for people making them for 2025. In 2023, the top New Year’s resolution was to “Improve mental health.”
Forbes listed 16 different resolutions people said they’d make for 2024.
After “Improve fitness,” 38% of the people polled said they’d like to “Improve finances.”
While “Improve mental health” was the first choice for Americans when they approached 2023, it’s only number three on the Forbes list now for 36% of the respondents.
“Lose weight” (34%) came in fourth, while “Improve diet” (32%) was fifth on the list.
The list of the more popular New Year’s resolutions contains some common themes.
“Drink less alcohol” was preferred by 3% of those people polled.
And “Stop smoking” was the New Year’s resolution of choice for 12%.
That may have been one New Year’s resolution that’s worked over the years.
The percentage of U.S. adult smokers has dropped from nearly 42% in 1965 to 11.5% in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Al Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.