Sentiments of the New Year

Lately, my thoughts have been dominated by the sentiments of the ‘new year’. I ask myself, is the year really new?

 To me, it is just but yesterday. The sun did not shine differently, nor is the sunrise any more dramatic than yesterday. So what makes it new; the fact that we recycle the same numerical numbering?

 We pick the days of the year and attach numbers to them and when it reaches the last number, we start all over again, and then we term that ‘new year’.

 We are going around in circles, because the world itself is going around in cycles.

 The geographers says the earth revolves around the sun in 365 ¼ days and then returns to the same spot it started and it has been doing that for billions of years.

 The earth is growing older, so are the people in it. With each passing revolution of the earth around the sun, the people in it grow older and then begin to regress until their body can no longer sustain itself and then they die.

 Each ‘new year’ actually makes us older; nothing becomes new about us.

 The ‘new year’ is a state of mind which humans cling so tenaciously to in hope that something better would happen this revolution time around. They want to believe that things would change for the good. Unfortunately it is not true.

 The same way the earth revolved around the sun the last cycle around, so it will this time around.

 They make new resolutions, set goals and plan ahead for the next 365 or 366 days. This is good and admirable. But the question I ask is, does it have to take a ‘new year’ to set goals or resolutions?

 I can wake up on the 1st of May and decide that the turn I have taken in my life is wrong and then decide to change my course. If so, what then is the hype about new year resolutions? I term it mass societal delusion.

 The society holds January 1 in high esteem, believing that any resolution they make on that date would be so powerful as to shape their lives over the next 12 months.

 However, they soon discover that it isn’t as easy as just making a resolution as they thought and they give up, waiting for another 1st of January to try again.

 Thus, you will see a man that will tell you that he’s made cessation of smoking his new year resolution for the past five years but has not been able to accomplish it and as such has given up trying, thinking he cannot stop.

 Why? Because he believes in the power of new year resolutions and he has reckoned that if making those resolutions have not been able to help him, then nothing else can. He has accepted defeat because of his misplaced trust in the ‘new year’ delusion.

 What that man has failed to realize is that the power to change or achieve anything actually comes from within! It is not tied to any date or day of the year.

 The whole usefulness of the dating system is to make chronicling easier. You could refer to an event in accurate terms, say the day a country achieved independence.

 You can tell how long you have lived (and hence your nearness to the grave) in less confusing terms. For example ‘’I am 20 years old’’ seems simpler than ‘’I am 73,050 days old’’.

 So, just add another year to whatever billions of years the earth is and then the whole point of the ‘new year’ kind of loses its significance.

 The ‘new year’ 2014 is one year more than 2013. So how is it new? It is a continuum- a system of numbering to make chronicling easier. The year 2014 is a continuum of 2013, the 366th day or you just add one more day to the number of days you have lived and on and on.

 Or if you like, you might subtract one day from your ETD (estimated time to die).

 The ‘new year’ brings you nothing new. It’s just a reminder that your days are numbered, that you are growing older.

 Another sentiment is that the deeds of the ‘old year’ is buried with the year and is in the past. Not true.

 Every action of man has a repercussion, whether it is done in years gone by or in the present. A man that stole in the outgoing year can expect justice in the incoming year. A man that showed mercy, that lent a helping hand can expect to find mercy in the incoming year. Nothing is really buried in the ‘old year’.

 The ‘new year’ can be an opportunity to start anew but it does not negate the deeds we have done, doesn’t erase the consequences of the actions of the past.

 So, as we go into the ‘new year’, we should remember that the year isn’t really new; it is just an extension of yesterday. There is no magic in January 1 resolutions (most of them fail anyways, because we don’t put our minds into them), nor in any other date,they are just a numbers.

 Rather, the magic is in us; our power to shape our destinies by the decisions we make and the determination to fight for what we want.

 The ‘new year’ brings you closer to the grave and you should start giving serious thought to the afterlife, making steps to secure a good place for yourself.

 The ‘new year’ holds no magic, charm or importance that is not already in you. Be wise and free yourself from the hold of the mass societal delusion which is ‘new year’.