新年快乐！2020年了，大家是不是又立了很多flag，学英语、减肥、健身、演讲……英语里把这些决心要在新年里做到的事叫New Year’s resolution。所以新年快到时大家比较流行问：Have you made any New Year's resolution?（你有什么新年决心吗？）回答很可能是 I haven't made any New Year resolutions - I never stick to them anyway. （我没有，反正我也做不到）。中文里，可以将New Year’s resolution翻译为：新年决心。这里的resolution，由动词resolve得来，而resolve除了有常见的“解决”之意，还有“决心去做”的意思，所以make resolution也可以形象地理解为立flag。今天就来看看New Year's resolution的来历，顺便祝大家flag不倒，一切越来越好！
The ancient Babylonians are said to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions, some 4,000 years ago. They were also the first to hold recorded celebrations in honor of the new year—though for them the year began not in January but in mid-March, when the crops were planted. During a massive 12-day religious festival known as Akitu, the Babylonians crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king. They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. These promises could be considered the forerunners of our New Year’s resolutions. If the Babylonians kept to their word, their (pagan) gods would bestow favor on them for the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the gods’ favor—a place no one wanted to be. 据说古巴比伦人是最早下新年决心的民族，大约始于4000年前。他们也是第一批举行有记录的庆祝新年活动的人——尽管对他们来说，新年不是从一月，而是从三月中旬开始，那时正好开始种庄稼。在一个被称为阿基图的为期12天的大型宗教节日中，巴比伦人为新国王加冕，或重申他们对在位国王的忠诚。他们还向诸神许下诺言，偿还债务，归还他们所借的任何物品。这些承诺可以被认为是新年决心的前身。如果巴比伦人信守他们的诺言，他们的(异教的)神会在来年赐予他们恩惠。否则，他们就会失去神的护佑，谁也不想要这样的结果。
A similar practice occurred in ancient Rome, after the reform-minded emperor Julius Caesar tinkered with the calendar and established January 1 as the beginning of the new year circa 46 B.C. Named for Janus, the two-faced god whose spirit inhabited doorways and arches, January had special significance for the Romans. Believing that Janus symbolically looked backwards into the previous year and ahead into the future, the Romans offered sacrifices to the deity and made promises of good conduct for the coming year. 类似的做法也发生在古罗马，当时具有改革思想的皇帝尤里乌斯·凯撒修改了日历，大约在公元前46年将1月1日定为新年的开始。双面神杰纳斯(Janus)的灵魂居住在门口和拱门上，以他的名字命名的一月（January）对罗马人很重要。罗马人相信杰纳斯的双面象征着回顾过去和展望未来，于是向神供奉祭品，并承诺来年品行良好。
For early Christians, the first day of the new year became the traditional occasion for thinking about one’s past mistakes and resolving to do and be better in the future. In 1740, the English clergyman John Wesley, founder of Methodism, created the Covenant Renewal Service, most commonly held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. Also known as watch night services, they included readings from Scriptures and hymn singing, and served as a spiritual alternative to the raucous celebrations normally held to celebrate the coming of the new year. Now popular within evangelical Protestant churches, especially African-American denominations and congregations, watch night services held on New Year’s Eve are often spent praying and making resolutions for the coming year. 对于早期的基督徒来说，新年的第一天传统上成为思考过去的错误和决心将来做得更好的时刻。在1740年，卫理公会的创始人英国牧师约翰·卫斯理，创立了Covenant Renewal Service，最常在新年前夕或元旦举行。它们也被称为守夜仪式，用诵读经文和唱赞美诗的形式来庆祝新年的到来。新年前夜举行的守夜仪式如今在福音派新教教堂中很流行，尤其是非洲裔美国人的教派和集会中，通常用来祈祷和制定来年的计划。
Despite the tradition’s religious roots, New Year’s resolutions today are a mostly secular practice. Instead of making promises to the gods, most people make resolutions only to themselves, and focus purely on self-improvement (which may explain why such resolutions seem so hard to follow through on). According to recent research, while as many as 45 percent of Americans say they usually make New Year’s resolutions, only 8 percent are successful in achieving their goals. But that dismal record probably won’t stop people from making resolutions anytime soon—after all, we’ve had about 4,000 years of practice. 尽管这个传统有其宗教根源，但今天的新年决心大多跟宗教无关。大多数人不向神许下承诺，而只向自己立下flag，只专注于自我提高（这也许可以解释为什么这样的决心很难坚持下去）。根据最近的研究，多达45%的美国人说他们通常会在新年立flag，只有8%的人能成功实现目标。但这个糟糕的记录可能不会在短时间内阻止人们立flag——毕竟，这个传统已经有大约4000年。
本文译自：https://www.history.com/news/the-history-of-new-years-resolutions
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