I think that of all the public holidays, New Year’s Day is my favourite. It always seems so full of promise, a whole empty year stretching out ahead, ready and waiting to be filled with adventure, happy memories and love. And no doubt some bad stuff, too. Like any year.
New Year’s Day also provides a sort of clean slate, a good excuse and opportunity to do things better, and to be better, than in the old year. Sure, we can do that at any moment, but the clean break of New Year’s Day, moving from one year to the next, is a great symbolic time to make such changes.
Some people make New Year’s Resolutions, but I never do. I’ve always thought of them as creating and opportunity for failure, and the bad feelings that come from that, if we don’t lose that weight, stop smoking, or fail to change whatever else we don’t like about ourselves.
Instead, I often set goals at New Year’s, and usually about things that don’t matter (like for this blog, which I’ve done several years). That way, if I don’t achieve the goal, it’s no big deal, and certainly not a failure, especially because I sometimes change my mind about a goal during the year. The point for me is to focus on the future, and things I want to do, not on the past or things about myself that I want to “fix”. It’s probably just semantics, but it works for me, which is the whole point.
The really great thing about New Year’s, though, is that I get another one in only three weeks! I’ve often thought of my birthday as a sort of Personal New Year, with yet another opportunity to re-boot and start fresh.
So, here we are in 2015. I can’t wait to see where this road goes.
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| A friend shared this screenshot on social media. Ironically, HLN isn't broadcast in New Zealand. |
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