If you are joining millions of Americans in making New Year's resolutions, you are continuing an ancient tradition. begun 4,000 years ago in Babylon.
Around 2000 BCE, the Babylonian new year (called Akitu) was celebrated in mid-March, coinciding with the barley harvest and the spring equinox.
During the 12-day festival, people made promises to the gods'mostly practical ones like paying off debts, returning borrowed farm tools, or being better citizens. If they kept these promises, the gods would supposedly favor them in the coming year.
The Babylonians also crowned a new king or symbolically reaffirmed loyalty to the reigning king, so resolutions often included pledges of loyalty.
The practice evolved after that.
Ancient Romans adopted it when Julius Caesar moved the new year to January 1 in 46 BCE (to honor Janus, the two-faced god who looks backward into the past and suggested reflecting on the past year and planning improvements.
Early Christians initially rejected the custom as, pagan,, but by the Middle Ages many used New Year's as a time for spiritual reflection., Watch Night' services, still held in some churches, today trace back to this.
But, the actual phrase, New Year's resolutions' first appeared in print in a Boston newspaper in 1813.
About 40'50 percent of American adults say they make New Year's resolutions each year, according to YouGov. Only 8'12 percent of people report successfully keeping their resolutions for the entire year.
In keeping with that reality, various days have been called "Quiters Day" — with dates ranging from January 12 to 19, although some surveys suggest that people keep their resolutions until mid-February.
About 75 percent make it the first week, and 46 percent make it past six months, according to University of Scranton research).