Dec 31, 2018 3 min read

Today is the last day to go to the gym before it gets mobbed by newcomers. The drugstore will probably sell out of Chantix, but there will be one more empty stool at the bar. At midnight, people will make some crazy vows they can’t keep.

It’s time to make your New Year’s resolutions. The January tradition is designed to make you feel guilty by February – as if February isn’t hard enough.

I couldn’t have been the only one wondering, “Who started all this craziness?”

According to the History Channel, the ancient Babylonians were the first people to make resolutions in the beginning of the new year. Of course, the Babylonians started their new year in March, because they knew how hard it was to get to the gym in winter.

Smoking hadn’t even been invented yet, so no one had to go cold turkey.

They did, however, have alcohol. I’m sure there were plenty of hangovers during Akitu, the 12-day festival that welcomed in the new year. Matter of fact, there’s no way they weren’t hungover if the festival lasted 12 days!

Boy, they could party back then. After four or five hours, I’m ready to go home and go to bed. I can’t imagine partying for 12 days.

Some 4,000 years ago, after their big party, the Babylonians thought that they should repay their debts and return items they had borrowed to make peace for the new year.

New Year’s resolutions would be a lot easier if I only had to return borrowed items. I’d give my brother his chainsaw back, and I’d have wrapped up my resolutions before the Rose Parade finished marching down Colorado Boulevard.

In ancient Rome, Julius Caesar moved the start of the new year to January. Caesar named the month after Janus, a Roman god. Janus had two faces (like Karen on the fifth floor). The Roman god had one face that looked forward and one face that looked backward. He was the god of doorways and entranceways. The two faces were probably to see people coming and going. In Pittsburgh, he would have been called “nebby.”

Those Romans had a god for everything, but naming a whole month after a guy who was basically an exit sign with a head is pretty messed up. Memorizing all those gods must have been exhausting. At Christmas, I couldn’t even name all my cousins, and I’m related to all of them.

Side note: Imagine if we still had mythological gods. They would be gods and goddesses of modern times. We’d be praying to Susan, the goddess of good parking spaces, or Chuck, the god of fortuitous text messages.

But I digress, like I do. Because Janus had a face looking backward toward the past and another one looking forward toward the future, people started reflecting on their past and planning out their future in his honor. Thus, the New Year’s Day resolutions were born.

It’s been a struggle ever since. Happy New Year!