Made Your July 1 Resolutions?

Forget January. The time to turn over a new leaf is when the leaves are full

Maybe the reason we never keep our New Year's resolutions is that we have the start date wrong. There is little that feels new or resolute about January 1, when the days are short, the trees bare and in much of the country people are wrapped in so many layers that no one can tell if they shed that extra holiday weight or not. Surely there is a better time to turn the leaf, scrub your goals, fix what's broken.

The Mesopotamians, who invented New Year's about 4,000 years ago, celebrated in March, after the spring equinox; the Egyptians chose September,...

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