Another Year Has Slipped the Reins

The Christmas decorations are all boxed up, the poinsettias are in the compost, the new year has been rung in and out. It’s 2018. We have survived a year of President Trump's twitters, Prime Minister Trudeau's socks, sexual harassment charges galore, wild fires and torrential rains, and North Korea did not push the big red button...yet.  Just another year of good and bad.  As I have written before, I don’t do New Years resolutions and this year will be no exception.  I am at the bottom of my energy cycle, the battery is drained,  just waiting it out now until spring arrives.  This blog post is being fueled by caffeine and gingerbread cookie, not by enthusiasm. Being honest with you here.

What is the hoopla about the turning of a new year anyways?  Why such a feeling of renewal and resolution for many people all around one slim day, January 1st? It’s arbitrary. It's just another year., actually just another day between one year and the next. People want to know what your plans are for the coming year, your goals.  Well, much the same as last year, folks. Take care of myself and others, be a good person, tackle the challenges with some grace and grit. The same old rules apply. There will be no easy wins, stuff happens with hard work and commitment, small joys need to be celebrated as much as the big ones, losses taken in stride, hope sown, despair weeded out.  That’s about as specific as l like to get as we all know what happens to best laid plans.... they oft go awry, so I’ve heard.  I do make plans and set goals for myself but with an understanding that this year may not be any more helpful in achieving them than the last year was. There is no magic in the change of number on the calendar. A good friend had a challenging last six months and she commented that she was looking forward to 2018 as 2017 was a prime number and she has always disliked prime numbers. That’s as good a reason as any to ring in the new year on a hopeful note.

We humans are so irrational, emotional and so easily swayed by the unexplainable. We go on feelings, gut instincts, lucky numbers, auspicious signs, and our horoscopes in the paper that morning. Anything can cause us to have a good or bad day, feel our luck is turning for or against us. Hitting three green lights in a row, no line up at the coffee shop, finding a twenty dollar bill in the coat we put on can make our day feel like a good one.  Research has shown that people who believe themselves to be lucky are more lucky. Makes no sense but there is some science to it apparently.

So that brings us back to the turning over of a calendar year and the effect it has on us. Some people can hardly wait for the year to end as they feel a new year will bring better luck or more happiness than the one that is finishing, with no actual reason for that other than faith in a new start of sorts.

 The Romans priests before the reign of Julius Caesar manipulated the calendar any way they wanted, shortening and lengthening it to suit their purposes. They could keep people in office or boot them out by changing the calendar.  Now that’s power! We don’t have that ability, sadly, so we must go along with the length of the year given us, why?  When approaching a birthday with one of the weighty zeros at the end I decided to give up the number counting and become ageless, maybe now is the time to become yearless.  It will be neither a good year nor a bad year ahead, just another set of days, the same as we had last week and the week before. This puts the onus for change and fresh starts where it belongs, not on poor overworked January 1 but on us. As for the annual party and popping of champagne and wearing of silly hats that we have all enjoyed at times, let's move that to a day that deserves it, a day that really does something for us - the winter solstice.

Another minute of daylight, now that is something to celebrate!

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