Essays From West of 98: Resolutions of Spring

Living within seasonal cycles, and making resolutions around that, like our forefathers did

What are your thoughts on New Year’s resolutions?

I like the idea of setting intentional goals for areas of improvement in life. Specific goals and targets can be vital to actual self-improvement, but I have never loved the emphasis around January 1. I have finally realized why I find it bothersome: what about a new year actually leads to a new you?

With all due respect to New Year’s Day, what is significant about January 1 other than flipping the calendar from one year to the next? When you go to bed on December 31, it’s wintertime. When you wake up on January 1, it is still wintertime. The day is slightly longer but not noticeably so. The year may have changed but the season runs together.

Once upon a time, our forefathers lived within seasonal cycles. Certain tasks were undertaken in specific seasons and around harvest and planting calendars. Phrases like “hog killing weather” were created to identify the inherent connection between life’s recurring duties and the seasons with which they were associated. Depending on your age, you may have lived within these intentional seasonal cycles, or your parents or grandparents did. If you are engaged in any manner of farming, gardening, or raising livestock or poultry, you probably still have some elements of seasonal cycles within your life. Without question, though, modernity has reduced life’s depending on seasonal cycles.

It is partly economic. Fewer people work in jobs dependent on seasonal cycles. What does the season matter in an office, beyond tangential decisions like determining whether to wear an overcoat for the walk from the parking lot? It is partly technological. Plenty of folks still work outdoors, but the tools of the trade are much more suited to do work at more times of the year than “the old days.” Part of it is the on-demand lifestyle we’ve created over the decades. When we want it, we buy it/order it/download it/demand it. You need not wait for a particular fruit to ripen in the garden and enjoy its seasonality, you can just go buy it at the grocery store whenever you want it.

What does that have to do with a New Year’s resolution, anyway? My wife made a comment the other day that life changes were probably better suited for spring and that made a ton of sense. If one acknowledges the cycles of the seasons, spring is the time for new growth and new changes to take hold. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the values of the darkness and the winter solstice, and I observed that the darkness was worth honoring and embracing as part of the natural cycles.

I cannot help but think, though, that the darkness of winter is a terrible time to embrace and apply life changes in the form of New Year’s resolution. In a seasonal mindset, winter is for rest and reset. It recharges you for the good work of planting new crops in the spring. It allows you to clean, organize, and repair your equipment so that it is ready to go.

In that same way, we should apply the seasonal cycles within our lives. We should rest and reset during winter and get ourselves ready to implement life changes and self-improvement during the spring of new growth. I’ve got a few more things I want to say about living seasonally in the year to come, but as the new year kicks off in full, and as we think about improving our lives, remember that seasons exist for a reason. Hundreds of generations of our forefathers centered their life, their work, and their pleasure around seasonal cycles and living within that seasonal harmony. The modern world is a frantic, frenetic, anxiety-inducing place. A good antidote for that just might be living within seasonal harmony.

A good place to start might be applying spring resolutions for ourselves, our family, and our community. It might be a healthy new addition to life.

James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and the Rural Church and State and West of 98 podcasts. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to him wherever podcasts are found.