Yesterday, New Year’s Day, was Global Hangover Day.
It was also Global Magical Thinking Day.
Call me a cynic, but there is nothing special about New Year’s Day. It has no potency, no power. It signifies nothing of interest in the physical world, marks neither solstice or equinox, time to sow or time to reap.
And yet, we believe it is the perfect time to effect a change. We believe it is a day for self-improvement, and that by making a promise to ourselves on this day, the things we have been trying to do for years will somehow come to be. We make resolutions to do better, to be better.
We make resolutions, recite them like enchantments, write them down like arcane spells, and expect them to work. This is magical thinking.
Look at the word: Resolution. From the word, Resolve, meaning to break down again, to disassemble.
Originally, it meant to take a thing and break it down into its constituent parts. This then led to a new sense of the word, meaning to make from the constituent parts a final determination: a resolution.
We cannot make a resolution by merely mouthing the words. We must break ourselves down, study our inner mechanisms, and from thence make a determined change.
Change comes from understanding, not from wishing.
Do you want to lose weight, stop smoking, or (like me) write more?
First, understand why you do what you do. Then, re-solve.
k
We should go back to starting the New Year at the Vernal Equinox – invoke real change.
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Throw in abolition of Daylight Savings Time and you can count me in.
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Absolutely. That ludicrously outdated institution needs repealed.
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