A Brief History of the New Years “Resolution”
December 27,2012
PJ Blogger
Ridgewood NJ , January gets its name from Janus, the two-faced Roman god who looks backwards into the old year and forwards into the new. Janus was the patron and protector of arches bridges, gates, doors, doorways, and of coarse endings and beginnings.
In Roman times the New Year was marked with feasting and parties where Romans would make “resolutions’ similar to what we do today ,but with more of a focus on being good citizens .as aposed to personal development.
Early Puritans in America looked to avoid the hedonistic celebrations that marked the being of the New Year during Roman times and the indulgences associated with those celebrations , even going as far
by the 18th century, of avoiding even naming Janus. Instead they called January the “First Month.”
Early Puritans urged their children to skip the revelry and instead spend their time reflecting on the year past and contemplating the year to come. In this way they adopted again the old custom of making resolutions.
Jonathan Edwards an American theologian brought up in the New England Puritan culture, began the practice of writing down resolutions ,turing the written resolution into an art form. Edwards did not write his resolutions on a single day , but rather, during a two-year period after he graduated form Yale. During the time he compiled some 70 resolutions on various aspects of his life, which he committed to reviewing each week , creating what would later become the modern “Self Help ” book.