Special days are, if nothing more, token reminders about different parts within ourselves. New Year's is really special, because when the ball drops and the fireworks explode and the drunken spirited melody of Auld Lang Syne is hearkened or sung by all, an urge enters the spirit to change, to become better and accomplish more and be happier and find love (or express it more truly) and be honest and good and all the rest. For a fleeting moment, many people actually take an honest look at their lives and imagine how they could be better. Some people even go so far as to resolve to enact said imaginings!

And any gym regular will tell you they hate January, because that's when, for about three weeks, the facilities are clogged like so many arteries with large rumps and spare tires; resolute New Year's devotees, fresh from celebrating the Earth's token completion of yet another orbit around its giver of light and life, drag their rears to the gym to transfer some of that excess caloric energy back into the world outside themselves. They really mean it.

By the end of the month, they're mostly or all gone, and the regulars remain with the place to themselves again. The gym machines go back to their metaphorical routine lifestyle of human intakes and energy outputs, while the disheartened resolution-makers sit at home afront the television, remote in hand, year-pass between the couch cushions, watching advertizements for cheap ab-crunching machines. The message is quite visible, yet lost to those who refuse to look.

And the message is that New Years is no better a day than any other to make a lifelong resolution. Other holidays can serve as genuine, good token reminders for us to do good things, to give and to love and to appreciate, and they can have meaning if we allow for it. But most resolutions, unlike acts of giving, can't be done in a day.