The older I get the more I appreciate New Year’s Day as a holiday. Part of the reason is that, although I saw no hint of religion in it as a child, I have come to realize that holidays are for reflecting. As a self-critical individual, I don’t wait for any date to make resolutions, preferring to do that in real time as soon as I learn about my bad behavior. Still, although it’s a somewhat artificial marker, January 1 is a time of hope. It seems that since 2016 years have been something of a slump. Trump certainly has something to do with it, but Covid has become a monster in its own right and it’s hard to know when we might be able to get back to feeling comfortable in large gatherings of people. Even as an introvert I miss that from time to time. Still, optimism comes out with the start of a new year. Who doesn’t like new things?
Technology has made us hyper-aware of bad things happening elsewhere. This evolution of a hive mind has caught us unaware, it seems. We do have a desire to improve (with some exceptions, such as politicians only in it for themselves) and that focus makes our next steps optimistic. What greater hope can there be that an entire year stretching out in front of us, yet to be written? There’s the old saw about a blank sheet being a source of fear, but why not do our best to write our own futures on it? Put our good intentions into the mix to try to balance out the negativity that some others seem intent on dragging the rest of us through. New Year’s can become almost religious in that way. We consciously reject the bad that has grown on us throughout the previous twelve months. We can do better. We can be smarter. We only need to believe.
I know that I keep hoping every year that HR will see the wisdom of allocating holidays. We work more efficiently now, and people smarter than the rest of us suggest that we should not be stressing ourselves so much over things like work. My own outlook is that days given off work for reflection are increasingly important. Capitalism with its worship of mammon is, hopefully, entering its late stages. I can see a future that’s better than what we’ve managed so far. Let’s hope the wisdom exists to make 2024 a year of avoiding disaster. A year of hope.
