On New Year's Resolutions
My wife [1] and I[2] have both written in the past about the pointlessness of New Year's Day as a holiday.
As such, I've never made New Year's resolutions.
However, I was thinking before the arbitrary turn of the year that New Year's resolutions make a lot more sense in some cases than I at first allowed.
The fact of the matter is that most people celebrate the new year and many people run their businesses based on that date. The former fact means that many people will have a vacation around that time -- oftentimes a long one. The latter fact means that many people will have just finished a mad rush to complete some task for the year and/or will have turned in some end-of-the-year report.
Thus New Year's may well be one of the best and most convenient times of the year to make any major changes in one's schedule or lifestyle. As for me, I've just turned in a long report. All the work I am going to do this year will be written up on a fresh "slate". I've just come off of a long vacation; thus, I should have more energy to integrate new things. Also, because of the big holidays, I should have a long stretch of full weeks for a while. Full weeks make it a lot easier to set up some sort of regular schedule.
So I've still not really made any resolutions this year -- because who ever keeps them? But I have made some New Year's changes. We'll see how long they last, but it's really a rather convenient time to make them... despite the stupidity of starting the New Year now.
As such, I've never made New Year's resolutions.
However, I was thinking before the arbitrary turn of the year that New Year's resolutions make a lot more sense in some cases than I at first allowed.
The fact of the matter is that most people celebrate the new year and many people run their businesses based on that date. The former fact means that many people will have a vacation around that time -- oftentimes a long one. The latter fact means that many people will have just finished a mad rush to complete some task for the year and/or will have turned in some end-of-the-year report.
Thus New Year's may well be one of the best and most convenient times of the year to make any major changes in one's schedule or lifestyle. As for me, I've just turned in a long report. All the work I am going to do this year will be written up on a fresh "slate". I've just come off of a long vacation; thus, I should have more energy to integrate new things. Also, because of the big holidays, I should have a long stretch of full weeks for a while. Full weeks make it a lot easier to set up some sort of regular schedule.
So I've still not really made any resolutions this year -- because who ever keeps them? But I have made some New Year's changes. We'll see how long they last, but it's really a rather convenient time to make them... despite the stupidity of starting the New Year now.