New Year Resolutions

Goodbye 2015. Hello 2016. At the stroke of midnight tonight the bells tolled, fireworks exploded and we celebrated the passing of another year. One more year to add to the histories and by all accounts a year which some will remember with joy and some will remember with sadness. Visit any news or topical website and you'll find a 2015 review detailing some of the more prominent stories of the last twelve months.

And as we approached the end it was only natural we start to make plans for the next year - a quick glance at any social media will see it full of New Year Resolutions and plans. Plans for changes to health, wealth, relationships, time, knowledge, charity and all manner of interesting concepts and ideas are decided upon, shared, edited, deleted and shared again. Somebody wants to lose weight, someone else wants to learn a language and someone else wants to get a new job. Most resolutions that I've seen tend to be worthy goals and I hope they are achieved but for me the curiosity is how tied they are to the "momentous" passing of the year as though it's a seminal moment.

The calendar change from 2015 to 2016 is a convenient and definitive point at which to mark the beginning of an attempt for personal change but it's worth pointing out there's nothing special about the second that takes us from 23:59:59 on 31 December to 00:00:00 on 1 January. The significance that gets ascribed to the new year is brought about by our arbitrary cultural decision to mark the passing of time as we have done. Someone sometime decided that 00:00:00 would be at midnight and that 1 January would be the start of a calendar year. It could easily have been something else and in many places it is indeed something else. Many communities have their own calendars which watch time differently. The lunar calendar being a notable example used around the world. Some communities mark the passing of one day to the next based upon when the sun sets which if you think about it is a much more natural and observable way to measure the passing of time from a human point of view. The Islamic calendar year takes it starting year as the year in which the Prophet (peace be upon him) fled his home city to seek refuge in Yathrib, the Hijrah. We're actually currently mid way through the Islamic, Hebrew and Chinese calendar years.

So 1 January 2016 is the day we've chosen to work with as a society but what does that mean for our plans? Why do plans for change have to fit that template? The answer is they don't have to fit that template. If you want to make a personal change, start the change as soon as you can while your resolve is strong and your thoughts clear. Now that we're into 2016 does that mean new changes will have to wait until 2017? Of course not. Time waits for no man and changes will occur around you regardless of what time of the year it is!

Waiting to start a change until a new year begins is an unnecessary delay that can become a slippery slope of forever waiting to start. Calling a plan for change a New Year Resolution gives it a grand title that you can talk to others about but does nothing for making that change actually happen. That drive to change has to come from within yourself and it takes effort. Change for the better is rarely easy (if it was you'd have already done it) but it is always a good thing even if it can be a long, hard and thankless road that you may be terrified of walking down. But if it's a change you really want and you mean to do it then don't wait and, to quote the Nike marketing department, just do it!

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