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Showing posts from December, 2018

Why do we make New Year's resolutions?

Now, when Christmas is over and we start preparing ourselves for the New Year's Eve, we also start thinking about the promises for the New Year. The most common one regards changing a bad habit, like quitting smoking, starting a diet or more generally introducing a healthy lifestyle. But on the other hand, it may be also an excuse to start learning a new language or travel to a place when we have never been before. We may promise to spend more time with the family or dedicate our free time to a voluntary organization. But where did this tradition of New Year's resolutions come from?  From what I've known, it is due to the Romans and their mythical god named Janus. He has two faces: one looking forward and one looking backward, what symbolically means that he can see the past and the future at the same time, that he is looking backward into the past year and forward into the new year and that is why Romans start reflecting about their resolutions. And th