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It’s New Year’s Eve and 2010 is just around the corner (not a moment too soon we might add). The New Year is a great time to begin anew and start off with some New Year’s resolutions. We don’t like to think of resolutions as being ironclad edicts (ex. “I must lose 10lbs this year or else I’m a failure”), but useful goals on the road to self improvement. We Edukatorz think that self improvement is always a good thing and that you can’t be awesome if you don’t know what you want. With that in mind, here are a few tips on how to formulate your resolutions for the coming year.

1) Evaluate

It’s important to evaluate what type of person you are and what you want out of life. While you should constantly be on the path to self discovery, now is a good time to really evaluate your life and figure out what you want and what and makes you happy. It’s okay if you don’t know what you want too. We’ve all had our fair share of existential crisis and knowing that you don’t know what you want is just as important. You don’t have to know or discover everything, but you’re not going to find out anything if you don’t ask yourself.

Now is also a good time to evaluate your relationships with people and yourself. Are there any toxic relationships you think are holding you back? Are there relationships you think you need to pursue? These are questions you can ask yourself now.

2) Be Realistic With Big Goals

Just because you may know what you want doesn’t mean it has to happen all at once or that it could happen all at once. Life is about the journey, not the destination (cheesy, but true). Make your New Years resolution something realistic that you know you can accomplish, there’s no reason to set yourself up for failure if you don’t think you can handle it. It’s good to put pressure on yourself, but don’t set the goal so high that you can’t reach it yet.

But, if you think you can handle the big goal, go for it, and don’t be afraid to fail. A fear of flying has prevented many people from achieving or even setting up their goals.

3) Small Changes

Maybe you don’t have a big goal for next year or you can’t think of any big changes you want to see in your life, don’t sweat it. Resolving to make a few small changes in the coming year is just as useful and just as important as making big ones. Even a little change can go a long way into making your life better.

4) Formulate

If you know what you want out of life or have a semblance of an idea, now is the time to formulate a goal or plan for 2010. You can’t get anywhere if you don’t  Let’s say you decided that 2010 is the year you’re going to learn how to DJ? Make a list of things you need to do to learn how to DJ, what equipment you need to buy and friends who can help you out. This way you have an actionable plan that could work.

This is the God the the Babylonians were honoring - Marduk!

The first decade of the 21st Century is rapidly coming to an end and 2010 is almost upon us. To celebrate the coming of the new year, many people draw up a list of resolutions for the coming year. A new year, a new beginning, right? Instead of instigating changes in ones personal life when one thinks it needs to happen, it’s much easier to pick an arbitrary date on the calendar (January 1st) and make a resolution to change. This has been the case for thousands of years.

New Year’s day celebrations began 4000 years ago in Babylon. Instead of celebrating New Year’s on January 1st like Western civilization does, they celebrated the first of the year at the first new moon after the Vernal Equinox equivalent to around March or April using our calendar. They celebrated New Year’s with an 11-day festival named Akitu. During those 11 days they partied hard and honored their gods. While partying, Babylonians also made resolutions, the most common being to return a piece of property back to someone they borrowed it from.

People celebrated New Year’s in March until 153BCE when the Romans moved the beginning of the calendar to January. January is named after the Roman God Janus who looked forward and backward through time. As part of their New Years celebrations, the Romans would exchange gifts and make resolutions about the coming year in honor Janus. Usually these resolutions involved forgiving enemies for wrongs committed the year before.

So after a couple a thousand years we may not party as hard as the Babylonians or the Romans, but we still have New Year’s resolutions. Don’t forget that if you’re thinking of not having a resolution this year, you would be ignoring 4,000 years of beautiful tradition.

Knocking, err, champagne glasses....

While kissing someone at midnight on New Year’s may not be necessary, it sure is fun. What better way to ensure you’re going to have an awesome year ahead of you then by making out with someone at the beginning?

Unless you have a significant other you’re spending New Year’s Eve with, there’s no sure fire way to get a midnight smooch, but follow these steps and you too will at least increase your chances

1) Go to a Party

While the Edukatorz tend to think that New Year’s Eve (along with St. Patrick’s Day and sometimes Halloween) is amateur hour for people who don’t really know how to drink and party, it’s still important to get out there to a New Year’s Eve Party if you want a midnight kiss. Hopefully one of your friends will be having a party, this is the perfect spot for a midnight make-out as it will not be too crowded. If you find yourself at one of those huge bar celebrations, never fear you could probably find someone to kiss, just make sure s/he doesn’t puke on your shoes. Also try not to get too drunk, it’s not very attractive.

2) Talk People Up

Most likely, there are plenty of people at the party you’re attending that also want a midnight smooch, the key is to find these people and see if any of them are compatible with you. It is a midnight kiss, you don’t want to make out with just anyone. There are lots of people in the same boat as you are who also want a midnight kiss so just walk around the party and start talking to people who look like they may be single (note: DO NOT BE CREEPY). There’s a chance you could hit it off with one of them and voila smooch city.

3) Solicit Your Friends

You could have an awesome friend group where everyone makes out with each other all the time. If this is the case, you obviously have no need for this column. For the other 95% of us that don’t make out with their friends all the time, it’s okay to solicit your friends for a smooch. You could ask one of your friends for a quick kiss at midnight or ask that they bring a friend that is amiable to being kissed by you (this is preferable). Make sure nothing is awkward though, awkwardness is the enemy of awesome and everyone should always strive to be awesome.

4) Don’t Worry About It

Don’t worry about whether or not you’re going to get a midnight smooch. If you go into the situation searching for only a kiss that night, you might not find it. Potential make-out partners can smell desperation, so don’t be desperate your year is still going to be great whether you make-out with someone or not. Just be suave and follow the above steps. Even if you don’t get your midnight kiss, you just might get your make-out from someone you meet that night later on down the road.