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The first New Year’s resolutions were made some 4,000 years ago. Since the ancient Babylonians started pledging their allegiance to the reigning king or crowned a new king, and made promises to repay debts in the year ahead in order for the gods to bless them in the new year, people have been making — and breaking — promises every start of the year. Imagine all those promises broken! In fact, it has become a joke that we only make resolutions in order to break them.

People who have suggested that I should retire and just sit back and enjoy the “fruits of my labor” do not really know me. I have been working all my life. Since the first time I walked with my mother from our Tondo house to Divisoria until today, I have always been an entrepreneur. Today, I still start my day with a brisk walk early in the morning. But it is true what I said in past interviews: “I will probably die as an entrepreneur.”

Why do we celebrate the new year? Why do we go through all the trouble of going back home to the provinces or gathering everyone around the dinner table before the clock strikes midnight? There is a psychological importance to bidding goodbye to the old year and to welcoming a new year. A new year signifies hope and a new beginning. It is as if the turning of the new calendar can erase everything unsavory about the previous year and giving everyone a clean slate for the incoming year. A fresh start to life.