My Hopes and Thoughts for the New Year

It’s peak time for the yearly entourage of NY posts, where we collectively condemn the last 12 months and look forward to the next 12 as a beacon of hope. This year was garbage! Roll on 2023! Worst year ever!

For many, this is true. Also for many, the same is said every year. It's hard to recall the last time on a NYE that I saw a status, post, comment, celebrating it for what it was. Again, for some rightly so.

My point is that inescapably, life will pummel us all, most years, and we shouldn’t ignore that – we should acknowledge the pains, remember them, and grow from them. But we can all too easily forget the wealth of good times we’ve also had, the knowledge we’ve gained, the lessons learned and how far we’ve come.

If the theme every year is to have disdain for the previous year, we should learn that the hardships we face won’t go away in the next simply because the number changed from 2022 to 2023. I’m not saying this to put a downer on it. I’m saying that there is an inverse to the narrative as well, which is that as well as looking to the hopes of the new year, we should acknowledge how lucky we are for the previous, in whatever ways are relevant to us.

I’ve had both terrible troughs and perfect peaks, and without specifics, they would measure differently depending on the person. The point is that you shouldn’t feel like a failure for what you didn’t do this year, or for what happened to you. Don’t look back at the worst parts of this year as though there wont be anything equally bad or worse to face in the future; and don’t look to the future as being where the answer lies, the good things wait, or as the only way to change things.

Last year was both great and painful, like every year to come. Last week was as meaningful as next; but this doesn’t make it meaningless. It means we shouldn’t dismiss everything and fail to live it. To get all Buddha for a second, we tend to live our lives in both the past and future, but the only life that exists is now. If we believe every year that we’ve wasted the last one or failed to achieve anything, then we are doomed to a perceived life of failure.

The truth is that we should pay more attention to now. Don’t be hard on yourself, or create stress for yourself which doesn’t have to exist. Life doesn’t get easier with a new year, but nor should you make it harder for yourself. A number is just an arbitrary point in an ever-changing life – so make the small and incremental changes you can manage, when you feel like it. Perhaps pay attention to what you have now and use it to look back on this time next year, not as a measure for the past years shortcomings.

Lastly, as inapproachable as I may seem, if you want to share anguish and pain, you can talk to/at me.

Of course, if you are happy grumbling your way into the new year, that’s also perfectly fine.

Cheers to you all! 🥃