Changes

The use of the term "resolution" in discussing the New Year may first appear in the magazine <i>Walker’s Hibernian Magazine</i>, where it encourages people to pledge and make resolutions for the New Year. It also gave a list of resolutions that could be taken by different people and professions. In 1813, a Boston newspaper used the phrase "New Year resolution." The newspaper encouraged people to live a less sinful life after the indulgences of the holiday period , and one should focus on living a good, sinless life in the New Year, the newspaper encouraged.  In the Victorian period in Britain, upper -class individuals made it a custom to make more secular New Year resolutions. This custom may have begun or led to the trend of making resolutions to become slimmer or look better , at least in Western traditions. Others made resolutions to have more children or achieve a certain status in society. Arguably, increasingly New Year resolutions in the mid to late 19th century were not just religious but also secular, as people began to make various promises to themselves. In other parts of the world, New Year 's resolutions were a mix of secular and religious, often wishing luck and fortune in the New Year.  In many cultures, eating a special type of food on New Year's day is common, which is intended to bring luck in the New Year and help in achieving one's goals in the New Year. Eating sweet foods, symbolizing success, is common. The Dutch, for instance, eat a dough fritter called <i>olie bollen</i>, which symbolizes success and luck in the New Year. While champagne is common in Western countries to toast the New Year, other cultures also have sweet or alcoholic drinks used to wish each other well in the New Year.<ref>For more on how New Year resolutions developed in the 19th century and the association of resolution with New Year, see: Standage, Tom. 2018. <i>Seriously Curious: 109 Facts and Figures to Turn Your World Upside Down</i>. London: Profile Books Ltd. </ref>

The tradition of New Years Year's resolutions continued to be religious for some, particularly Protestant denominations in Western societies, who often would write down their resolutions and periodically check to see they fulfilled them during the year. More recent studies have shown that countries tend to have different types of focus when it comes to making resolutions. In India, it is more common to wish for a prosperous future or better career prospects.  In the United States and Egypt, health was the most common resolution, where both countries struggle with obesity. Australia and Japan focused on love or finding a soulmate. In Russia, it was common for individuals to wish for a successful education for their children or others. For many others, having good finances were was the most common, in many ways similar to the first New Year resolution known to us from Babylonia, which emphasized getting out of debts. A more recent study using Twitter showed that the top online resolutions were: diet and exercise, reading more, learning something new, saving money, be nicer, get a better job, giving to charity, drinking less, sleeping more, and making new friends.<ref>For a recent study on using social media to know what resolutions people make, see: Zhu, Dandan, Yusuke Fukazawa, Eleftherios Karapetsas, and Jun Ota. 2012. “Long-Term Goal Discovery in the Twitter Posts through the Word-Pair LDA Model.” In <i>Advances in Natural Language Processing</i>, edited by Hitoshi Isahara and Kyoko Kanzaki, 7614:262–67. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33983-7_26.</ref>

New Year 's resolutions seem appear to be very ancient and most of the recorded history associates it with religious behaviour behavior or trying to become a better person, invoking God or the gods in helping one achieve their goals. By the 19th century, New Year resolutions that were secular became increasingly common, with familiar ones, such as losing weight, as being one of the goals. Throughout history, it was common for people to struggle to keep their resolutions, with people often sliding back into their old habits. Nevertheless, New Year 's resolutions have been remarkably consistent, often focusing on behaviour behavior and trying to improve one selfoneself. Reflection but looking forward, as symbolized by Janus, are is also true in many cultures and has persisted until today.

<references/> [[Category:Wikis]] [[Category:Holiday History]][[Category:European History]] [[Category:Ancient History]]