Every Day is a New Year

I’m a little traumatised by the fact that 2022 ends in less than two months.

But as the end of one year approaches, I’ve been thinking about the approach of the new year and the atmosphere around this time.

It’s a time of reflection, a time of setting new goals, and a time of resolving to do better next time around. Everyone craves a fresh start, a clear marker that can separate them from the past and move them into something beyond.

Maybe we’ve been stuck in a rut. Maybe we felt like we wasted the whole thing. Maybe we didn’t get to accomplish all that we wanted to.

We can scrounge up some hope because a new year signals that we can begin again. There is opportunity on the horizon.

And yet? Nothing has changed but a number on a calendar.

Over the years, I think I became a little cynical about New Year’s. If my life always feels the same from December 31^st to January 1^st, what’s the point of making a big deal out of the new year?

And I wasn’t wrong to think that. But I wasn’t right either.

Yes, a new year really is just a number or two changing on the calendar. But why not use that as an opportunity for a fresh start?

And if we can take something so small as an opportunity to create a clean slate for ourselves then, surely, we can create opportunities to begin anew whenever we want.

It’s not time that separates us from the past. It is our own choices to move on from it.

It’s easy to be defined by the things we have done, by the things that have happened to us. We can ground ourselves in the past because it happened. It’s right there in our memory to draw reference to.

But the past is not our present. The past is not our future.

We can’t do anything about what has gone before, but we have a say in what we do now and how we want to face the future.

We can get caught up in the routine of life and forget that there is newness in every day. We can miss out on the potential that every sunrise brings.  

Because the truth is this: You can have a fresh start at any time. You can resolve to make a change whenever you want.

It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday, last week, last month. All you need is a commitment to do differently than you have done before.

Even if (when) you fall off the wagon one day, nothing stops you from getting back on there and starting again. You can create as many new beginnings as you need.

And if we keep doing that, somewhere along the line, way into the future, we’ll be grateful for how we ended up exactly where we wanted to be.

And we would’ve arrived there one new day at a time.

Until next time,

Siobhan K.