It’s back! The month of December is back! It is that time of the year that calls for excruciating reflection and nerve-racking existential crisis. December first is the beginning of a long and winding road down self-introspection. It begins with a simple realization that 11 months of another year have gone by. With every passing day, the realization evolves. Your heart goes back and forth, oscillating from one bad memory to another. Every letdown, every mistake, everything you did not do or could have done better is micro-analyzed. Broken down piecemeal with enough attention given to the smallest of slips.
It is that time of the year, where you fondly recollect the dreams and aspirations you began the year with. The zest of optimism pumping through your veins, the cheer of a brand new year, a brand new you, that year of transformation you had hoped for. Then Wham! It is December already. You catch yourself wondering how time flew by, without a single hue or cry. Before you know it, a year has passed taking with it precious time you hoped for. All the dreams you began the year with, remain pretty much that; dreams.
But is that all transformation takes?
Changing the last digit of the date. I do not think so. That is not how life works. That is not how nature works. Autumn does not come about the last hour of summer. It is a gradual process. The earth does not just come about the sun in a millisecond.
After all what is a calendar year, but a human invention to keep time? It was a means to understand the way the world works a little better so that we can work around it. Calendars are built for practical purposes, nothing else. Earth is constantly evolving and so is all the life within it. So then where is all this fuss coming about?
In today’s juncture, new years are so much more than time-keeping. Instead of accepting another year has gone by, it has become that time of the year where humans are taken for a ride. It is that time of the year gym annual memberships skyrocket from poor souls never to return. (Do not fret we have all fallen for it, many times not once!). It is that time of the year social pressures hit hardest “Oh, who will I kiss at midnight?” to “Another new year’s single”. It is that time of the year where those with expendable money feel they have the least of worldly pleasures. “Drive into the new year with the fastest wheels” or “Extra-Extra protein treatment to experience the freedom of beautiful hair”
It is almost laughable. I have always wondered, why wait for a new year to innovate yourself? Why wait for a valentine’s day to show your love? Is this all just a big marketing gimmick or am I just becoming more of a cynic? I am not sure which, but I somehow seem to have fallen off the wagon somewhere along the line.
Change is the only constant
As annoying as the common saying goes it is inevitably true. Life is happening all around us. Every moment of passing time causes change. Contexts change, scenarios change, you change and so do I.
Coming back to excruciating reflection. Do I think I have achieved all that I wanted to this year? Partly yes, not all. But I sure did manage circumstances that I never thought were possible. There were many a situation that I faced that I could have never foreseen on the 1st of January. And, why should every year be the finish line? It is one thing to be grateful for the past and be hopeful for the future. But still why the 31st of December? Are we not given a clean slate every single day we wake up alive and breathing? I am of the belief that, for tomorrow to be a better day I don’t need the last digit of the year to be a different number.
Each day is a brand-new day. I do not need a reason to start over. I do not believe I control all that happens in my life, but my attitude towards life will always remain constant. Whether I am flying high above the stars or lying low crumbled in a pit as low as I could ever fall, I shall strive. I shall strive to fight another day. And beyond all, I shall hope, every day, that tomorrow will be a better day. That tomorrow, I would not make the same mistakes I made today. That tomorrow can be any other day and I will embrace it just as much.
“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies”
Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption
On that note, Cheers to a wonderful and brand new 365 days. May it bring all the happiness and the prosperity that you have always hoped for and let the spirit always remain as high as if tomorrow is a brand-new year. Let there be more travels and more new adventures, much farther than your comfort zone, for we are who we want ourselves to be and everything more. Say goodbye to your limitations every single time the mind says no for, believe me, your heart has the courage to take on much more. Take those chances you always looked past and choose those lonely paths that mean so much more to you. Live a little lighter, laugh a little louder and love a little stronger for tomorrow is a brand-new day.