Many people find the idea of New Year’s resolutions to be ridiculous. The date that a “new year” begins is arbitrary after all. (The Babylonians and ancient Romans started their new year in March during the spring equinox.) There is no reason to wait until January to set new goals. And more than 90% of the resolutions we do make will not last through the year.
Most of us realize that we will probably fail; yet we continue to make life-changing resolutions on January 1.
Chesterton on resolutions
For the great G.K. Chesterton that is a good thing – as he explain in the very first entry of 1916’s The G.K. Chesterton Calendar:
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year’s resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Hope and rebirth
In the same calendar’s entry for December 31, Chesterton warns against viewing what comes tomorrow as “clear and inevitable.” If we do so, we will be like those who looked at Medusa and her sisters and were “turned to stone.”
That’s because only hope can make us new people. To accept that tomorrow must be like yesterday and that life will never change is to die inside. Even something as simple as a New Year’s resolution is an acknowledgement that God made us creatures of hope.
“There is one thing that gives radiance to everything,” Chesterton said on another occasion. “It is the idea of something around the corner.”
One resolution you can keep
Chesterton is always surprising us, especially in how he looks at life through the lens of his Christian faith, finding promise and goodness even in the most mundane things. Just imagine what it would be like to go through the Jubilee Year of 2025 with that attitude!
If you do make resolutions this New Year’s Day perhaps one of them could be to read a little more Chesterton — and to try to imitate his openness and positivity when dealing with the world at large.
