Ndidiamaka EdeDid you know that New Year celebration – which normally starts on the night of December 31 and enters January 1 – was first held in Babylon about 4000 years ago?
Emperor Julius Caesar had introduced the Julian calendar in 46 BC as a reform of the Roman Calender.
The Julian Calendar is almost the same as the Gregorian Calendar used by most countries today.
Emperor Caesar instituted 1st January as the first day of the year. It is believed that the name January was coined from the Roman god, Janus, whose two faces allowed it to look back into the past and forward into the future.
With the onset of a new year starting from the first day and running through the first week of January, many are preoccupied with making new year resolutions and planning how the year would run for them.
New year resolutions and plans are good to the extent that they help to guide an individual in setting goals on what to achieve in different spheres of life – financial management, life style, educational pursuit, among others.
As lofty as the set goals might be, many people find themselves unable to start implementing the goals in earnest. Once it starts getting to the 4th quarter of every year, many are being spurred to work harder to accomplish plans set earlier, and once at the middle of December, those that couldn’t achieve much usually get upset.
According to Statistics by the Brain Research Institute, 45 per cent of Americans usually make New Year resolutions. Of those, only 8 per cent are actually successful.
Could these disappointing outcomes have emanated from lack of willpower or sheer inability to set realistic resolutions? Some say new year resolution failures have more to do with one’s stage of readiness for attitude or behavioural change to adopt those resolutions and implement set goals.
Getting upset for not being able to achieve one’s goal or quest to have it realised by all means is often linked to the high rate of illegal or criminal activities like kidnapping, armed robbery, stealing/theft, money laundering, rituals and a host of other criminal acts occur in ’ember’ months.
This is because people would naturally engage in these awful acts to accomplish plans made at the beginning of the year.
But what if one had started carrying out those plans from the Month of January? There is one fact about the beginning of each year: People are usually reluctant in putting immediate action to the year’s resolutions, believing there would always be enough time. Remember, “a stitch in time saves nine,” says an old aphorism.
There is also the talk about unforeseen challenges being a major factor inhibiting implementation of New Year plans, but that should not justify brazen indulgence in criminal acts that affect others.
True to the fact, 2023 is here, and each day that passes will never come again. But each new day comes with opportunities for greater accomplishments.
Make your resolutions and plans today starting with examining the past year and being able to point out areas you need to work on to achieve your target by 2023 year-end.
This is wishing you a happy and prosperous 2023.
Ndidiamaka Ede is Journalism Mentee with Prime Business Africa.
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