New Years Musings

Seeing as it’s the last day of the year, I thought it wise to offer a bit of musing, as I have become so accustom to doing. Unlike my usual commentary, filled with thoughtful quotes and witticisms, the New Year is one of the few times that no quote or wise words of wisdom can convey the sentiment of the last day of the year and the slow march forward through time.

The New Year is a holiday with a dichotomy, celebrating the end of what is old and a rebirth into what is new. It is a holiday of new hopes, new promises and new dreams for the year to come. It is a holiday of expectations, for only the best for the year to come. It is a holiday where we look forward to everything that will challenge us and figuring out new ways to tackle these problems. New Years is the only holiday to constantly provide us with a fresh new outlook on life. New Years is about change, and its ever constant presence.

Although everyone looks forward to New Years and the revelry that ensues, we seem to forget that this is the last moments to reflect on the year that has past, from the high to the low to the end of the show. We celebrate the end of the old year, yet we forget to reflect on it. The gates are closing on another year, one more year written in the book of life we lived and one more year closer to its epilogue of death. It is strange that, as a secular culture, we let our resolutions and promises from the current year fall to the wayside and have little in terms of absolution for our transgressions, broken promises and resolutions left unfulfilled. We all have filled our year with these and ignored them for whatever reason and this is our last chance to look back and say with outright certainty that this is what did I do wrong this year and this is what could I do differently. New Years Eve is our last chance to look inside ourselves and at those around us and weigh our actions, both towards others and directed at ourselves, and to consider for the last time this year what we did right and what we did wrong. The New Year is also where we look to the future, knowing that when the clock strikes midnight, we will venture into a year filled with new unknowns to explore, problems to face and new ways to move forward. We look to the future and come up with a list of goals we want to achieve, new things to try and, most importantly, a new outlook on what lies ahead.

For me, this year has been a rather long and rocky one. It was a year with an albatross around my neck, a cross to bear for a burden not my own and the newfound appreciation for things, particularly learning how to enjoy every sandwich. While I am ready to leave this year behind, I also look to it for the lessons I have learned in it. I cannot help but think about what it means to be a beast of burden and still dwell on whether what I did during the year was right or wrong, whether keeping or ignoring my resolutions was a blessing in disguise and whether or not this chapter in my life was one I could be proud of. I look back on the year and see what I did right and wrong, not with rose colored glasses, but with insight to how I can change for the year to come.

Monkeys, I know I am being a bit heavy on New Years, but I wanted to leave you all with some thoughts to mull over as you recover from a night of celebration. When you go to look over the list of resolutions for the year to come, take a look at what you have written down and then break resolution up into smaller pieces that you can manage to do in your daily life. Your resolutions are a sign of changing and failing at them are just another statement of proof that we do not take change that easy. The more we try to change, the more we stay the same, or so the saying goes. The only way we can change and grow for the New Year, and in life in general, is by taking things one step at a time, one day at a time and one moment at a time.

New Years, like change, is something we expect to happen, but unlike New Years, where we know that at the stroke of Midnight, we have moved another year forward, change is something that takes time and effort to do. My challenge to you all for 2011 is to break the cycle this year, find a resolution you really want to make a reality and find a way to change for the better. Take your resolution and work at it, bit by bit, piece by piece and day by day. Find a way to come through on your resolution, your goal for change, instead of finding a way to let it be absolved at the end of the year.

To those I have grown close with and to those that I have yet to and to all you monkeys here on WSO, May you have a Happy New Year. May it be filled with only good luck, the strength to overcome any obstacle that stands in your way, good health and new and renewed success for the year to come!