National Resolution Planning Day

 A 4,000-Year-Old Idea We Keep Ignoring

Today, December 30, is National Resolution Planning Day, which exists for one simple reason: January 1st was always a terrible idea. We’re tired. We’re overstimulated. We’re digesting sugar, alcohol, family dynamics, and unrealistic expectations. And yet—every year—we’re told this is the moment to reinvent ourselves. History would like a word.

About 4,000 years ago, in ancient Babylon, people did not scream “NEW YEAR, NEW ME” into the void and hope for the best. They held a multi-day New Year festival called Akitu. Important clarification before we go any further: Akitu is not a person. Not a god. Not a prophet. It’s a process. Which already puts it light-years ahead of modern resolution culture.

Akitu was timed to spring, when crops could actually grow and the world itself was rebooting. Radical concept. The festival included reviewing the previous year’s failures, acknowledging chaos and imbalance, restoring social and moral order, and then making promises for the year ahead.

Promises weren’t vague. They were concrete: repay debts, return borrowed goods, fix what had been left undone. And yes—there were consequences. These vows were made under the watch of Marduk, whose whole mythological job was defeating chaos and restoring order. So accountability wasn’t a cute checkbox. It was existential.

One of the best parts? During Akitu, the king was publicly humbled—stripped of symbols of power and reminded that authority only existed if order was maintained. Translation: no one got to “manifest” their way out of responsibility. The sequence mattered: reflection → reckoning → restoration → commitment. Sound familiar? It should. That’s exactly what National Resolution Planning Day is trying to reintroduce—minus the ceremonial slapping.

Over centuries, this ritual got simplified. Babylon became Rome. Akitu became a calendar reset. Reflection turned into hype. Rome later tied January to Janus, the two-faced god who looked backward and forward. Even then, the message stayed intact: you don’t move forward without looking back. Somewhere along the way, modern culture kept the date and discarded the wisdom.

National Resolution Planning Day exists because, deep down, we know the truth. Change fails when it ignores nervous system capacity, stress load, biology, context, and reality. Babylonians didn’t call this burnout. They called it chaos. And chaos, historically speaking, was not something to flirt with.

Resolutions don’t fail because people are lazy. They fail because we keep skipping the part where we ask what actually didn’t work last year, what almost worked, and what our systems can realistically support right now. Planning isn’t hesitation. It’s intelligence. Babylon knew that. Rome remembered it. January 1st forgot.

So, if today feels quieter, slower, less dramatic—good. You’re not behind. You’re just finally doing this the way humans figured out 4,000 years ago. And honestly? Akitu would approve.