Someone suggested that Christmas and new years holidays often provoke moments of reflection on ones life. We make new years eve resolutions, perhaps we call forgotten or "misplaced" friends and or relatives, perhaps we visit people we haven't seen in years, perhaps people seek us out, and so on. The more I thought about Christmas time being a time for reflection, the more it seemed to ring true.
Next I wondered about why we make New Year's resolutions......
A little history: The Babylonians, Romans and the knights of the medieval era, made promises at the start of the year(or end of the year) to be "good". Similar concept also exist in Judaism; one is to reflect on ones wrongdoings and seek/offer forgiveness. According to Wikipedia: "Regardless of creed, the concept is to reflect on how one can improve oneself annually".
So, perhaps, New Years Eve can be viewed as a yearly visit to the "fork in the road"; our crossroad's moment, where we can realign our choices and choose a different path/road to the one we are currently using. For many years New Year's Eve meant one thing for me; the night when the many of us hardworking musicians were paid a really decent wage. Often on such occasions, one would not crawl into bed until four or five in the morning and as far as resolutions go, the most potent one for me at that stage was "Must sleep more".
According to statistics and cynics alike; most of us don't end up keeping our resolutions.
Putting stats and cynics to the side, reflecting on how contented, fulfilled, et cetera we are with our lives can help us focus our attention on "things" we may want/need to change. Perhaps we can imagine ourselves standing at that fork in the road; visualise that it represents the past and/or the future, what we know and/or what we can learn, where we have been and/or where we want to go to, who we were and/or who we want to be, and so on. If we do not eventually end up at a crossroads, perhaps we may consider whether we are actually "walking" in a circle?
"Time is just a human construct", some may say, "there is no such thing as a new year, all there is.... is movement".
(True enough perhaps, since some cultures vary from others. (Jewish new year, Chinese new year)
However, most cultures celebrates birth, and rebirth(death) in some form or another.)
Setting aside the philosophical debate on what time is, is not new years eve as good a day as any other to reflect on one's life; to reflect upon what is "working" and what is not?
“Reflect upon your present blessings -- of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” (Charles Dickens)
What happens in the past stays in the past, it cannot be changed only forgiven.
What happens in the future cannot be known it can only be anticipated.
But what happens now is a choice we have been given.
“Our power lies in our small daily choices, one after another, to create eternal ripples of a life well lived.” (Mollie Marti)
Socrates put it very succinctly: "The unexamined life is not worth living".
Every new day, not only new years day, we have the opportunity to start afresh.
What may have seemed impossible yesterday, may well seem possible today...
"If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present." (Lao Tzu)
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