January. The first month of the year takes its name from Janus, the ancient Roman god of beginnings, endings, transitions, doorways, gates, and time. A unique deity, his head is distinctively depicted with two faces, each staring in opposite directions. One face is observing the past while the other is looking to the future. Janus reigned over all passages of time: the physical, including doors and roads as well as the metaphorical, like birth, death, war, peace, and the New Year.
Fittingly, overseeing time and cycles, Janus served as the “door” between the old and new year.
The New Year. A time when many of us feel obligated to make a list of resolutions. Pledging to change old habits that no longer serve us or even harmed us in the previous year. We vow to replace them with new, good lifestyle behaviors that should ostensibly offer us better health and perhaps more wealth. One question? Why hadn’t we been doing that all along for the previous 12 months? Didn’t we make the same or similar “resolutions” a year ago? Why do we humans, again and again, every January 1, publicly declare that change is forthcoming, that this time will be the time we actually make those life changes. For good! As if a precise date can compel us into changing lifelong habits overnight.
Dry January
According to my own unofficial poll, the top two New Year’s resolutions are to lose weight (which includes joining or going back to the gym) and to eat healthier (which includes giving up alcohol and other unhealthy foods). While most want to shed those pounds and never see them again, few want to forgo booze forever. Just a month will do. Just for sport. Dry January, they call it. Many attribute some of the extra weight around their waists to alcohol but still believe that giving it up for just 31 days will help them achieve the body they once had in their twenties. Dream on.
For the record, I have been alcohol free for 13 months. From my personal experience, I can testify that liquor does add unnecessary pounds to one’s frame. As does processed foods, which I also eliminated at the same time and mostly stay away from. While I didn’t need to lose weight, I feel much better having lost close to 10 pounds as a result. Plus, eliminating all those toxins found in both alcohol and processed foods is essential to a healthy life.
Procrastination – Stay Present
If you’re like me, you don’t wait for a convenient date to start making serious changes in your lifestyle. You are continually assessing your state of health and mind to determine if any changes are in order. Being in tune with your body and soul. But it seems that the sometimes-flawed human brain would rather wait for a special, meaningful date to start implementing change. Procrastinating till the last possible moment when some supernatural force tells you it’s now or never. If that’s how we make changes, then we’re all doomed to fail.
I’m all for writing a resolutions list, as it keeps us accountable to making beneficial changes to our lives. But perhaps we can do it more regularly, instead of waiting for one specific date. Because to my way of thinking, there is never a perfect time to change. We are all slaves to procrastination and eventual failure. Think about all those gym memberships sold in the New Year. Then think about how many of those who purchased them continue to use them into February and then into the rest of the year.
Janus bridged the “door” between the old and new year, but let’s all keep in mind the importance of staying in the present. We’re destined for failure if we constantly look back with remorse, guilt or shame on what we did in the past and then look to the future to miraculously save ourselves from misery. Learn from the past but don’t dwell on it. Do the right thing now so that your future will take care of itself.
Stay healthy and happy, my friends!