Burning Wishes and Secret Promises: How the World Says Goodbye to the Old Year

In Russia, people write their New Year's wish on a piece of paper, set it on fire, drop the ashes into a glass of champagne, and drink it before the clock strikes midnight. The wish has to stay secret, or it won't come true.

That's just one way humans have figured out to release hopes and regrets at the turn of the year. Across cultures and centuries, people have developed rituals for putting their innermost thoughts somewhere outside themselves, sending them off into the universe, and starting fresh. Some involve fire. Some involve water. Some involve breaking things. All of them involve letting go.

4,000 Years of Fresh Starts

The tradition of making promises at the new year goes back further than you might expect. According to National Geographic, the Babylonians were doing this around 2000 BCE. They made pledges to their gods during a 12-day festival called Akitu, promising to pay debts and return borrowed farm equipment. The Romans adopted the practice and made promises to Janus, the two-faced god who looked backward at the old year and forward to the new.

These weren't casual resolutions. They were made to gods who might punish you if you failed. The secrecy was part of the point. You made a private promise, and the divine entity held you accountable.

Burning the Old Year

Fire shows up in New Year traditions worldwide. In Ecuador and parts of Latin America, people build effigies representing the old year and burn them at midnight. According to AFAR, these figures often represent politicians, celebrities, or just bad memories from the past year. The burning is meant to destroy the old and make room for the new.

In Italy, the tradition of il Rogo del Vecchione ("The Old Man's Burning") in Bologna involves setting fire to a giant effigy. The act is a cleansing ritual, burning away last year's bad luck.

There's something satisfying about fire as a ritual. You write something down, you burn it, and it's gone. The paper no longer exists. The words have been released. It's the ultimate form of saying something and then letting it disappear.

Why We Keep Our Wishes Secret

Across many of these traditions, secrecy matters. The Russian champagne ritual only works if you don't tell anyone your wish. In Spain, you're supposed to focus on your wishes silently as you eat each grape. The Japanese spend the final hours of the year in reflection, taking 12 seconds of silence before midnight to make their wishes.

Why does secrecy matter? Partly it's superstition. But there might be something else going on. Research suggests that announcing goals publicly can actually make you less likely to achieve them. When you tell people what you're going to do, you get a dopamine hit from the announcement itself, which can reduce your motivation to follow through.

Maybe the traditions knew something. Keeping your resolutions private might actually make them more powerful.

The Modern Version

Most of us don't have a fireplace for burning paper or an ocean for jumping waves. We live in apartments and check our phones at midnight. But the underlying need hasn't changed. We still want to release the old year's baggage. We still want to put our hopes somewhere outside our own heads.

That's where anonymous messaging comes in. When you write something on ReadAndGone and send it to a stranger, you're doing a version of the same ritual. You're taking something internal and releasing it. A stranger receives it, reads it, and then (for free messages) it vanishes. Like ashes. Like words thrown into the sea.

You could use it for a confession from the past year. Or a hope for the next one. Or just something you need to get off your chest before the calendar flips. People use it for gratitude they never expressed, apologies they couldn't make in person, or late-night thoughts that feel too big to keep inside.

A Global Tradition of Letting Go

When you look at New Year traditions worldwide, what stands out isn't the specific rituals. It's the shared impulse behind them. From Babylon to Bologna to Brazil, humans have felt the need to mark the transition between years by releasing something. We write our wishes, make our promises, name our regrets, and then send them somewhere. Fire, water, a stranger's door, a stranger's screen.

The format changes. The technology changes. But the need to let go stays the same.