In a few hours, we start another year. Another set of prospects to explore, new challenges to face. Also a time for renewing the vigor, enthusiasm and hope we need for yet another shot at life.
Some people have grown apathetic thinking that nothing is going to change this year. Those who had seen only hardship and failure in the past will probably expect the suffering and disappointment to continue. Indeed, nothing can put off the fire for living quite like misery.
But the New Year magic can work even for the pessimist. The occasion can usher in a fresh start for all. Everyone can start anew with a clean slate, free from the stains of past losses.
We all need to periodically check on the things we are keeping, especially memories. Most memories are sad; they involve events and people that are already gone. Dwelling on sad memories can only bring frustration, guilt or loneliness.
It is important, therefore, to continually clear ourselves – our minds and our ways – of anything that tends to serve no other purpose than to deplete our energies, waste our time and dim our view of the future. Every so often, we need to stop and assess ourselves, our undertakings, and check on our taken direction. The New Year is a good time for doing that.
The amount of time there is in an average-length life can seem overwhelming to consider as one continuous stretch. Anniversaries, like the New Year, serve to mark out a shorter period, the end of a lap and the beginning of another. These markers make it easier for us to grasp the concept of time.
Portioning time into certain periods or laps also gives us various occasions for starting anew. Every now and then we need to forget an ugly past or to let go of a load of hurts and gripes that have been weighing us down. And so, moving onwards, our life journey may become lighter and smoother.
Our appetite for keeping memories is quite a paradox. Some memories enrich us, others demoralize us. If we just go on collecting memories for mere sentimentality without evaluating the potential effect of each on us, our collection will just offset itself – the bad and the good stuff cancel out each other – leaving us feeling perplexed and uncertain about what to make of it.
Our study of history, for example, is not meant simply to make the past linger on. The purpose, for sure, is not to make us rest on past laurels or to perpetuate the pain of previous defeats. If it was, then the whole endeavor is nothing but societal ego-tripping or institutionalized masochism.
We need to peer into what went before inasmuch as it can be a source of good learning, of both inspiration and caution. Knowledge of past triumphs can boost our spirit as we deal with present challenges. On the other hand, the accumulated wisdom of earlier generations can forewarn us of possible doom if we are not watchful of our ways.
In other words, we have to sift the past carefully, and decide what about it to bring to the present. We must choose very well. Our choice is our right as well as our responsibility.
Someone asked me recently what year my father died. I could not answer right away; I needed a while to figure it out. The date of my father’s death didn’t seem like one I should commit to memory, but I don’t think of him any less often by not thinking about his death.
For me, deceased loved ones are better remembered as being in their best time – when they were alive and participating vibrantly in the give-and-take of life. I don’t want to remember them as withered, helpless losers to death. That’s rather a grim memory to keep.
The New Year is good a time for a starting over. It is a time for a fresh start. If not for taking a new direction and embarking on new undertakings altogether, maybe just for taking on a renewed vitality over the same old pursuits.
We do not have to start from scratch every time. We have to get wiser and better with every experience, with the passage of time. We have the innate capacity for learning, to enable us to continually improve ourselves: to build on past achievements, to avoid the already known pitfalls.
A year is merely a fraction of time in our continuing odyssey towards a full and satisfying life. Whatever it may eventually amount to is largely of our own making. The good thing is, we can make it any thing we want – and we can always start over if we don’t like what we get.