By Emily Wei, Lifestyle Columnist
Happy 2023! It seems like just yesterday that I was wishing everyone a happy 2022, so I personally think this past year should get a speeding ticket for going by so fast. The cliché of new years is to make resolutions and treat the upcoming year as if you are a blank slate. The tradition of New Year’s resolutions is thought to have originated in the Mesopotamian civilization as a way to please the Gods and start the year off on the right foot. Other new years traditions vary immensely around the world. For example, a common tradition in Spain is to eat 12 grapes before the last chime of midnight to symbolise your ideal twelve upcoming months. Lentils have been known to represent coins and wealth in countries such as Italy. In many countries, cakes in the shapes of circles or rings are meant to represent the full circle journey that was taken the past year. In addition to this, it is also common in countries such as China and Sweden to hide small coins or objects in food in order to bring good luck to those who end up finding them in their meal.
It is important to remember that New Years Day means you are only a day older, the earth has only completed 1 more rotation about its axis and there is no magic force in the air to make you a new person. Everything from the past still carries forward with you but this is not necessarily a bad thing. You can utilise everything you have learned from the past year and put it towards what you want to improve in the new year. In addition to this, resolutions do not need to wait for January. 1st to begin. You have the ability to begin anything you want to do at any time during the year. If after a week you want to take a break, then so be it, but just because you take a break, doesn’t mean you have to quit and wait until the next new year to take it up again.
We like to make resolutions based on where we are today in life and there is nothing wrong with this, but think about when you were younger and what you wanted to accomplish. I don’t mean “younger” in the sense of a university student because, as a student myself, if we thought this way, most of us would just wish for more sleep and less of an addiction to caffeine. In spite of that, I mean “younger” in the sense of when we dreamed of going to the moon and curing cancer. The sky was the limit but as people get older, the sky seems to sink further and further down. Due to this, as adults, most resolutions revolve around physical fitness or money. There is nothing wrong with wanting to exercise more or save money but think about your 5 year old self and what they would want. If you were to write a letter to your younger self, would they be happy with where you are now? With this in mind, try to include some new resolutions in your list this year. To end this column, I would just like to say that I am beyond happy to be able to write these columns for you for another year and I hope you all have a great holiday season!
Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash
