It seems like every year New Year’s Eve is always a big let down. I remember last year I fell asleep before I could ring in the new year with bells of misplaced hopes and expectations. I’m tired of staying up to watch a ball drop down at midnight. I’m tired of the drunk party goers stumbling out of the club across the street from my apartment. I mean I get it let’s celebrate making it through a whole year but why make a spectacle out of it. I’m over the whole thing. I just want to sleep.

 

You see I don’t understand the traditions. I don’t get why I need to eat grapes right before the new year, why I need to wear yellow panties for good luck, or why I need my mom to reprimand me for wearing pajamas at a perfectly reasonable time saying that that is how I will spend the rest of this new year.

 

“New Year, New You” at least that is how the saying goes, but how about “New Day, New You.” We all have the capability to change at any moment. Yes, the beginning of a new year seems like a sort of starting line for you to accomplish the things you want, but why is it that the most gym memberships spike in January? Why is it that we have “New Year’s Resolutions” that we never really see through to the end? What is the point? I concur that a new year can provide us with the motivation to be proactive, but would we not be more proactive if we took each day as a starting line.

 

I am not exempt from the somewhat naive New Year’s traditions that are seemingly ubiquitous throughout our society. I caught myself wishing for a better year, wishing that things would go well for me and many others. But after many years of receiving only empty promises, I realized that the “New Year” has absolutely nothing to give me.

 
I guess what I am trying to say in this long-winded explanation is that time is an illusion, a way to create order in chaos. In reality, there really is no “New Year,” and as such, there is no reason to believe that things will be any better this year versus the previous one. Empty promises will stay empty unless you decide to do something about it.“Better” doesn’t come from wishing when the clock strikes 11:11 or making “New Year’s Resolutions,” it comes from an internal desire to change and be proactive. Don’t wait until the year is up to make a change do it right now. Start that journal, finish that planner, or work on that exercise routine right now, because although time may be a construct what is very real is the shortness of life, a clock that doesn’t wait for anyone.