Every year, the first of January arrives, and I promise myself I’ll eat less frozen food, spend more time in the library, and get my 10,000 steps in each day. And without fail, every year the first of February arrives, and I think, maybe next year. It’s not unusual to make a long list of resolutions for the New Year, but why do we force ourselves to make so many changes at a time when our minds and bodies are at their weakest? Could we shift our conception of the New Year away from the solar calendar, or are we just too stuck in our ways?
In the UK, January is a month of being chilly, of returning to work or school after Christmas, of fighting to the death in the sales, and of taking countless supplements with dinner. In recent years, companies and even workplaces have leant into the idea of ‘Blue Monday’, the third Monday of the New Year, which is often deemed the most depressing day of the entire year. The cold and dark are no longer disguised by the excitement of Christmas, and it can be difficult to focus on new beginnings. It seems bizarre to expect ourselves to become new people when we feel the least alive.
On the other hand, the feeling of the first day of sunshine in March or April, when we finally dare to go outside in just a t-shirt, feels like that fresh start we all pretend January is. Spring is a time of new beginnings. Flowers are beginning to appear, the sky is filled with new bugs, and there’s an excitement in the air for the approaching summer. As the clocks go forward, there’s a renewed sense of motivation, with many people doing their ‘spring clean’, or taking up more exercise and activities in their newfound hours of the day.
And this sense of renewal isn’t just a UK thing – so many cultures around the world base their new year on the new beginnings that spring brings. Agrarian cultures that revolve around farming schedules place a lot of emphasis on springtime as the start of the year. In the Persian calendar, Nowruz is the new year celebration that falls around the time of the Spring Equinox, celebrating the end of darkness and the rebirth of nature. In the Middle East and Asia, the Lunar New Year is dependent on the new moon, once again celebrating rebirth, and in China, this coincides with the Spring Festival. For Jewish people, whilst the New Year actually begins in autumn, the springtime celebration of Passover represents liberation and new beginnings. And before the Julian and Gregorian calendars came about, early Romans considered the new year to be in March. Named after Mars, the Roman God of war and agriculture, the new year represented vitality, fertility, and starting fresh.
However, it is important to consider that the Southern Hemisphere experiences the seasons in contrast to our own. In many parts of Africa, South America and Australia, the New Year occurs in the summer, which may make the pressures of New Year’s resolutions a little lighter. Nonetheless, hot summers in the Southern Hemisphere could feel like just as much of a slog as our cold and dark winters. If we were to reconsider the New Year as being in springtime, then for those in the Southern Hemisphere, it would occur in Autumn, a time of new harvest. It does seem as if our current conception of the New Year is a lose-lose for both hemispheres.
Despite what the calendar might tell us, the culture of setting resolutions is entirely human-led. We seek a natural point in the year to better ourselves and make changes, and it’s not surprising that we settle on the first month of the year. Our mantra of ‘new year, new me’ is undoubtedly reinforced by the powerful marketing of local gyms and meal kit boxes, accompanied by a post-holiday consumer guilt. But contrast this forced conception of the New Year with the slower and more natural sense of renewal at springtime, and we could see a new tradition that aligns with our biology and pre-established habits. Creating goals at a time of low sunlight, low energy, and seasonal affective disorder feels like a setup for failure. In the spring, we are already setting new goals and feeling generally more positive, not to mention there is just more time in the day to achieve our resolutions.
To me, January does not feel like a time of energetic renewal or hope, but rather of rest and slow reflection. I don’t think that we ought to be campaigning for anything as radical as a calendar change but acknowledging that midwinter is not necessarily the best time to be reinventing oneself feels like a good place to start. The pressures of the New Year are part of a cultural mindset that can be shifted with time, and without a need to interfere with the solar calendar. Personal growth can occur at any time of the year and recognising that it might be harder when we are cold, sad, and tired could be what pushes us to adopt a second ‘New Year’ in the springtime.