New Year, New You?

A new year brings new resolutions like a north wind brings cold. You are never sure how long of an impact either will ultimately have, but it seems a few days after either one, the end result looks uncannily similar to the previous conditions.
There are two days that to me, are vastly overrated by the general American public. The first is birthdays. When someone asks me on mine about how I feel now that I am a year older (btw, I'm 27, not trying to hide my age), my answer is always that I'm not a year older, I am only a day older than I was yesterday. Maybe it stems from the fact I was born so early in the morning (12:04 to be exact), that had I been born in western Nebraska instead of Omaha, my birthday would be one day earlier. The other, in case you couldn't tell, is New Year's Day.
The differences between December 31st and January 1st are so insignificant unless you work in the calendar industry. Daylight Savings Time inflicts more damage than New Year's Day. And, frankly, how many times have you written or said 2012 this year? My biggest beef with New Year's Day is the idea of resolutions. If you need a calendar based reason to change, it has been my experience that you won't have the longstanding motivation to accomplish real and lasting results. Plus, why wait until January 1st anyway? Let's say, for example, that your goal is to lose 20 lbs (a noble concept for probably 75% of America); how easy is it to take that number effective January 1st instead of December 23rd? The difference would hopefully be small, but it's probably fairly significant. Now, let's consider an actual example of how pathetic a one day difference makes. If the so-called "fiscal cliff" bill were passed December 31st, the bill would have increased taxes and decreased spending. However, since neither chamber passed the bill until January 1st, the bill cut taxes and increased spending. THE RESULT WAS IDENTICAL, but the spin doctors (or spin lawyers) in Washington love nothing more than to go to their constituencies saying they accomplished the latter. 1 day...overrated.
Don't assume that I think resolutions made during the calendar year transition is fruitless, I'm just advocating for a firmer foundation for change. The goal of this post is twofold: 1) reevaluate motives to work towards attaining sustainable improvement, and 2) reinvigorate any past resolve to make effectual change and improvement more frequently and with better reasoning than annually.
Here is this week's quotation: "The same God that placed that star in a precise orbit millennia before it appeared over Bethlehem in celebration of the birth of the Babe has given at least equal attention to placement of each of us in precise human orbits so that we may, if we will, illuminate the landscape of our individual lives, so that our light may not only lead others, but warm them as well" - Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926 - 2004)